Gears of War: Solis Primus
by Azores
Summary: 400 years after the end of the now infamous Locust War, the people of Sera have rebuilt their shattered civilization and expanded onto the stars. But when a strange device is discovered at the edge of their system, the fate of the Seran people will be changed forever. Especially when they learn they might not be the only humans in the galaxy. 3 way crossover AU.
1. Timeline

**I don't Gears of War or Mass Effect.**

 **Bold-My Own Words**

 ** _Bold & Italic-Locations, Time & Calendar_**

Normal-Narrative

"Normal"-Person Speaking

'Normal'-Thoughts

 _"Italic"-Foreign Languague_

 _'Italic'-Radio Chatter_

 _/Italic\\-AI/Computer typing_

* * *

 **Timeline**

* * *

 **5,000 BE**

The Nation of Pelles develops a voting system.

 **980 BE**

The Nation of Gorasnaya begins its rise to power.

 **980 - 480 BE**

The Silver Age is ongoing. The Kashkur Empire prospers while Gorasnaya continues to expand.

 **480 BE**

Gorasnaya becomes a formidable empire. At its height, its territory encompasses some 400 Million people. From this point on, the empire begins a slow decline in size and population.

 **130 BE**

The Archipelago War is fought.

 **117 - 80 BE**

The Era of Silence begins. Humanity abandons warfare and enters a golden age.

Imulsion is discovered.

Imulsion is converted into a fuel source through the newly discovered Lightmass Process. The Gold Rush begins.

The Era of Silence ends as the demand for Imulsion outstrips the production capacity, resulting in a economic collapse.

 **80 BE**

The Pendelum Wars begins as the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) and the Union of Independent Republics (UIR) fight for dominance across Sera.

 **21 BE**

Marcus Fenix is born.

 **19 BE**

Dominic Santiago is born.

 **17 BE**

Siege of Anvil Gate.

Battle of Shavad.

Battle of Ragani.

 **4 BE**

Battle of Irohma Island.

 **3 BE**

Sarfuth-Maranday Border Incident occurs.

Development of the Hammer of Dawn at Aspho Point is discovered. COG begins plans to steal blueprints.

 **2 BE**

The Battle of Aspho Fields.

 **0 BE**

Development on the Hammer of Dawn is finished.

UIR Third Fleet engages COG forces at Bonbourg. Hammer of Dawn is deployed for the first time.

The Pendelum Wars end.

 **Emergence Day**

Six Weeks after the end of the Pendelum Wars, a subterranean group of humanoids, named the Locust Horde, emerge and slaughter 25% of the Human population all across Sera.

The Locust-Human War begins.

First Battle of Jannermount.

Battle of Porta Ogari.

Battle of Nordesca.

 **E-Day Plus**

Destruction of Halvo Bay.

Battle of Autrin.

Battle of Jasper.

Battle of Kaia.

 **1 AE**

The Hammer of Dawn Counterattack commences, scorching and destroying some 90% of the Planet, as well as killing billions of humans.

Battle of Andius.

Battle of Oblivion.

 **5 AE**

Fall of Landown.

 **10 AE**

Battle of Ephyra.

 **14 AE**

The Lightmass Offensive commences. The Locust Horde suffer large amounts of casualties, as well as the loss of one of their commanders.

The Locust Counterattack commences.

Siege of Jacinto begins.

 **15 AE**

Operation: Hollow Storm commences.

Siege of Nexus, the Locust Capital.

Jacinto City, the last bastion of the COG for the past 14 years, is sunk in an attempt to destroy the Locust in the hollows once and for all.

The COG relocate to the Naval Base at Vectes.

The Lambent invade the surface of Sera and attack both Locust and Humans.

 **16 AE**

The COG is formally disbanded. Vectes is abandoned.

The Battle of the Deadlands.

Battle of Anvil Gate.

Battle of Mercy. Dominic Santiago sacrifices himself to save the rest of Delta Squad from encroaching Lambent and Locust Forces.

The Battle of Azura. The remnants of the COG Gears and UIR launch an all out assault on the island to activate the Imulsion Countermeasure Weapon. Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad are able to reach the weapon, where renowned scientist Adam Fenix sacrifices himself to activate the weapon, killing all Lambent and Locust forces across the planet, rendering the two species extinct.

 **17 AE**

Azura and Vectes are established as settlements for the Remnant Gears and UIR forces. Contact is established with numerous other settlements all across Sera.

 **25 AE**

The settlements at Vectes and Azura unite and begin to establish trade with other settlements across the world.

 **30 AE**

Several of the world's surviving scientists come together at Azura and begin to help try and develop means of reversing the immense damage done to Sera by the Hammer of Dawn Counterattack.

Governments begin to slowly form across the planet as the settlements across the world continue to grow and unite with other local settlements.

 **42 AE**

Thanks to the research put in by the scientist at Azura, the deadlands of Sera slowly but surely begin to become capable of supporting life once more. In time, animal and plant life will eventually return to the deadlands.

 **50 AE**

Marcus Fenix passes away in his sleep. He is survived by a wife, two sons, and a daughter.

The settlements at Vectes and Azura join with several settlements in the former country of Tyrus to create the New Republic of Tyrus.

The Government of Nova Gorasnaya is founded by 8 settlements in Gorasnaya.

 **78 AE**

The Human population has estimated to have surpassed 180 million, in comparison to the estimated 78 million that were alive at the end of the Locust-Human War.

 **100 AE**

Several Continents on Sera undergo massive geological change, due to several large tunnels dug by the Locust collapsing in on themselves, which end up reshaping entire continents.

Surface conditions of Sera continue to improve steadily as life slowly returns to the Deadlands, decreasing its size over time.

 **136 AE**

Several cities have returned to near post-war conditions, including Ephyra and Hanover.

Humanity has reclaimed some 40% of Sera that they formerly inhabited.

 **175 AE**

The world population is estimated to have surpassed 1 Billion.

Humanity enters a minor golden age as Science begins to flourish once more. New forms of energy and new technologies are discovered over the next 30+ years.

 **220 AE**

A border skirmish between Nova Gorasnaya and Ostruth (A Country formed out of the ruins of former Ostri Republic and Sarfuth.) leads to the countries of the world coming together and reestablishing the Coalition of Ordered Governments, albeit with major reforms in order to ensure democracy and freedoms are protected. Large amounts of funds are spent in encouraging countries to work together, with some reasonable success.

 **237 AE**

An expeditionary satellite sent to neighboring planet Risea leads to the rediscovery of the fact that Risea has sufficient levels of Oxygen and is suitable for human habitation. Plans are set in the future for a possible colonization of Risea.

 **248 AE**

Plans and construction is completed for several spaceships that will transport people and resources to Risea in order to colonize it. Recruitment drives begin to find willing colonist for the mission.

 **250 AE**

Preparations are complete. The Spaceships are launched with their cargo and passengers at Risea. 3 months later, some 2,000 people become the first people to colonize Risea, establishing the town of New Jacinto.

Sera's two moons, Menulis and Mjesec, are also colonized as numerous mining communities are set up to harvest the two moons' resources.

 **250-270 AE**

Over the next 20 years, more and more colonists are sent to Risea as the demand for manpower and resources continue to climb. By the end of 'The Great Migration', some 2 million people call Risea home, with more arriving every 3 months.

Numerous mineral deposits and reserves found on Risea lead to a golden age for humanity.

The Coalition of Ordered Governments reforms into the Unified Seran Government (USG) to maintain and exert control over all of Human territory, and to act as the official representation of Sera and her colonies. Most people, however, continue to call the government by its previous name.

 **283 AE**

The Coalition spends large levels of research funding in developing large scale terraforming technology in order to assist in restoring Sera's battered surface back to livable levels.

Large amounts of resources are put in developing a large starship capable of traveling the star system with relative quickness.

 **295 AE**

The first large starships, capable of carrying 2,000 people each, are constructed. They're capable of making trips to Risea and back to Sera within 2 weeks. The COG Military purchases orders for 20 of the ships.

 **301 AE**

An insurrection begins on Risea as several factions try to declare Risean Independence from Sera and the COG. The Kodiak Insurgency has begun.

 **301-320 AE**

Over the next 20 years, the COG sends thousands of troops to Risea to restore order to the colony. Large scale fighting and guerrilla warfare break out all over the colony.

The Battle of Fredric's Point.

The Battle of Sofya.

At the end of the insurrection, control and order are restored to the colony, at the cost of some 10,000 soldiers and 100,000 civilians. It's not known how many insurgents died, as numbers range from as low as 7,000 to as high as 15,000.

The COG, realizing that their military needs to improve and refine their tactics, increase their budget on defense spending.

 **325-330 AE**

Several sets of Alien Ruins are discovered in Risea's Northern Hemisphere, leading to increased interest in the area by the scientific community. The ruins are discovered to be extraterrestrial in origin, belonging to an ancient alien civilization called the 'Protheans'. While none of the ruins have any functioning power, the scientific community still devote several AI into deciphering and understanding more about the Protheans and their technology.

Further investigating leads to the discovery that Risea is not the homeworld of the Protheans, rather a colony of sorts they were using to observe early humans.

 **348 AE**

Sera's population is estimated to be 2.75 Billion, while Risea is estimated to have 32 million living on it.

Some 72% of Sera is habitable once more as the Deadlands continues to decrease in size.

 **350 AE**

Several major scientific breakthroughs in quantum physics are made, resulting in the COG gaining increased interest in developing an FTL drive capable of traveling to nearby star systems.

The USG begin the construction of several new second generation ships to serve the COG's needs throughout the star system.

 **360 AE**

A prototype FTL drive is constructed. Testing commences.

A new element is discovered in the Prothean Ruins, dubbed 'Element Zero'. Unfortunately, there are only very small deposits of the resource on Risea, making it insufficient and inefficient as a potential fuel source. The element, however, does help in leading to the discovery of Kinetic Barriers, which enter mass-production immediately for the USG Military. They are still largely an untested and unrefined technology, however, being more effective within the Navy due to large reactors powering them.

 **361 AE**

The first warship equipped with the new FTL drive, a Frigate named the Zephyr, successfully traverses 'Hyperspace' to an neighboring star system, Keilor, some 8 light years away.

With the galaxy now opened up to the Coalition, volunteers for colonization missions skyrocket, resulting in millions enlisting to colonize the neighboring star systems.

Numerous Drydocks on Sera and her moons commence to construct ships for colonization and the USG Navy.

 **362-380 AE**

The USG proceed to colonize 5 star systems in the local cluster.

The USG Military increases in size in order to protect Sera and her new colonies. The largest increase is to the Navy.

 **390 AE**

The USG establish orbital defenses to each of their colonies to better protect them from a potential attack after a series of raids by pirates. The Hammer of Dawn, having gone through numerous refinements and improvements over the centuries, become a large centerpiece to planetary defense.

Constructions begins on three 'Dreadnought-Class' Warships, designed to act as flagships.

 **395 AE**

The first of the new Jacinto-Class Dreadnoughts, the CSS-Jacinto, is completed, measuring in at 2.05 Kilometers in Length. It is the most powerful warship ever constructed by the USG.

 **400 AE**

Sera's population is estimated to being roughly 4 Billion, while the colonies are estimated to have a combined population of 160 million.

 **410 AE**

Strange energy readings are detected coming from within Prism, a dwarf planet that's furthest from Sera's Sun, Onyx. A small Naval taskforce is despatched but are unable to determine the cause or the source.

 **412 AE**

More strange readings are detected coming from Prism. This time a large taskforce is sent to investigate. When one of the shipboard AIs detect a signal coming from the core of the planet, they attempt to interact with it. The result leads to Prism breaking apart and revealing a massive fork-shaped object that had been hidden within it. A majority of the fleet is sent to safeguard against a possible alien attack, but nothing happens in the months following the incident. A monitoring relay is set up on a moon closest to the relay to monitor for unusual activity.

Research and studies into the mysterious new object have led scientist to conclude that the object is a massive transportation 'Relay' of sorts.

An explorative taskforce is sent through the relay, who end up some 8,000 lightyears from the Onyx System in another Star System, named Sigma Argolis. Though the discovery is remarkable, nothing noteworthy is discovered within the system, save for a couple planets unsuited for colonization and a gas giant. A monitoring station is set up on one of the moons of the gas giant to monitor for any unusual activity.

 **415 AE**

Present Day- Contact is lost with the Sigma Argolis Monitoring Station. USG Forces begin to mobilize.

* * *

 **United Seran Government Populations:**

* * *

 **Onyx System**

 **Sera: 4.12 Billion**

 **Menulis (Moon): 2 Million**

 **Mjesec (Moon): 1.6 Million**

 **Risea: 112 Million**

* * *

 **Keilor System (8 Lightyears Away)**

 **New Pelles: 16 Million**

 **Gilgamesh (Moon): 430,000**

 **Lokono: 3 Million**

* * *

 **Helios System (10.4 Lightyears Away)**

 **Deliverance (Moon): 2.3 Million**

* * *

 **Hadur System (11 Lightyears away**

 **Svetovid: 9 Million**

 **Icarus (Moon): 800,000**

* * *

 **Arawak System (9.5 Lightyears Away)**

 **Beruna (Moon): 1.3 Million**

 **Khufu (Moon): 600,000**

 **Muria (Moon): 860,000**

* * *

 **Mayara System (14 Lightyears Away)**

 **Myar: 6 Million**

 **Severa (Moon): 200,000**

 **Caracalla: 5 Million**

* * *

 **War... War never changes...**

* * *

 _1 Seran Year= 13 Months/457 Days_

 _1 Seran Week= 10 Days_

 _1 Seran Day= 26 Hours_

* * *

 _Sera_ _Calendar_

 _-Fall-_

 _1-Storm- 37 Days_

 _2-Gale- 36 Days_

 _3-Hail- 36 Days_

 _-Spring-_

 _4-Rise- 37 Days_

 _5-Bloom- 37 Days_

 _6-Bounty- 36 Days_

 _7-Harvest- 37 Days_

 _-Winter-_

 _8-Frost- 31 Days_

 _9-_ _Thaw- 30 Days_

 _10-Ice- 31 Days_

 _-Summer-_

 _11-Heat- 36 Days_

 _12-Haze- 37 Days_

 _13-Brume- 36 Days_


	2. ACT 1 PART 1

**I don't Gears of War or Mass Effect.**

 **Bold-My Own Words**

 ** _Bold & Italic-Locations, Time & Calendar_**

Normal-Narrative

"Normal"-Person Speaking

'Normal'-Thoughts

 _"Italic"-Foreign Languague_

 _'Italic'-Radio Chatter_

 _/Italic\\-AI/Computer typing_

* * *

 **Theme Song for Chapter: 'Spirit in the Sky' by Norman Greenbaum.**

* * *

 **14th of Bloom, 2275 (415 AE)  
0720 Hours  
Onyx System  
Sera  
Republic of New Tyrus  
** **Ephyra**

* * *

 **Act 1  
** **Part 1**

 **"New Blood"**

 **400 years after the end of the Locust War...**

* * *

 **Ephyra Onyx Guard Academy**

"Lance Corporal Julius Richard Fenix. Born 11th of Bloom, 2255, in Ephyra, New Tyrus. Enlisted for the USG Military on the 20th of Bounty, 2273. Shipped out and conducted Basic and Advance Training from the 31st of Bounty to the 15th of Thaw, 2273. Was, and still currently is, assigned to Echo Company, 8th Battalion, of the 20th Ranger Regiment, part of the 14th Infantry Division stationed outside of Aspho Fields, afterwards." The Academy Recruiter spoke aloud as he continued to read the file of the man before him.

* * *

The man before the recruiter was a 6'1", 180 pounds of solid muscle. The 20 year old had dark brown hair, and emerald green eyes. He wore the standard grey BDU of a Gear, with the his name, rank, and branch of service visible across his breastplate. He had a firm, muscular frame, with a gruffed and rugged-looking face. He was seated in one of the two chairs in front of the Recruiter's desk.

* * *

"You scored well on your academics. Have received praise and commendations for you and your Battalion's actions at the insurgency of Pelles back in Early Rise of 2274, which earned you your Lance Corporal promotion. And now, you're requesting to become an Onyx Guard." The Recruiter continued.

"Yes, sir." Julius responded, leaning forward in the chair slightly.

"May I ask why exactly you want to join the Onyx Guard? I'm not questioning your integrity or anything, but typically most Gears don't apply for the Guard until they have at least 5 years in the service under their belt. Sounds to me like you're trying to outdo your ancestors." The Recruiter chuckled.

"No, sir. I just feel that I would be best put to use with the Guard." Julius replied.

The Recruiter leaned back in his chair, "Hm. If I do recall, don't you have an older brother in CMI? Why not follow in his footsteps? Or your father's, even?" He questioned some more.

* * *

The CMI, Central Military Intelligence, was the main Intelligence gathering body of the Coalition Armed Forces (CAF). They were praised for their efficiency and well known for their contributions to advance AI research and development labs all across Sera. The CMI use the latest in Coalition tech and gadgets, in order to assist the CAF in completing their missions or whatever is required at the moment.

* * *

"Tyson is the one that's good with computers. I'm good with guns. I think that the Onyx Guard would just be the logical next step in my career, sir."

"I see." The Recruiter commented. With a sigh, he moved to stand up, "Well, the board will still have to greenlight an acceptance for you to begin training as an Onyx Guard. But, I don't see anything in your record that would diswayed them, save for the short amount of time you've been a Gear." He extended his hand towards Julius, who shook it and nodded. "Thank you, sir."

"I'll get back to you in a week if you haven't received an email or anything. Take care, Corporal."

With that and a 'thank you', Julius left the room and proceeded out of the large and main hallway of the building.

* * *

Julius stepped out to the site of the grand capital city before him. Ephyra had grown and changed much in the last 400 years, from being the capital of the COG to a ruined city during the Locust War, to a spiraling metropolis, that is also the capital of the USG, it is today. Some two dozen Skyscrapers towered over the city's skyline, while the massive Orbital Elevator dominates the skyline, which brought large quantities of resources and goods both to and from orbit.

He walked down the large staircase of the Academy, down towards the sidewalk where his car was parked. As he walked down the stairs, he glanced to his right and saw a mother with two young boys sitting at a bench while laughing and enjoying some frozen treats. Wincing, he turned his head and got in his car.

Turning the ignition and driving off, he turned on the radio to listen in to the news or some songs, anything to focus his attention away from anything family related.

* * *

Of course the Jackass would bring up his family, he's from the most famous family of the human race. And yet, his family had felt so distant from one another ever since his mother died. He hated it, and he hated the attention he got just because of his family name. He wasn't looking for fame or glory or any of that bullshit. He just wanted to do his duty as a soldier as every one of his ancestors had when they were needed to.

* * *

As he drove through Ephyra, back towards the Military Barracks at Ilima Army Base he called home, the radio blared on with the daily news of today.

 _'... Early today, the Hannover Cougars won their first away game today against longtime rivals, the Triesten Sharks in a 5-3 Victory. This match will also mark a milestone in linebacker Karen Johnson's career, as she score her 50th touchdown to date in her 3 years of playing Thrashball.'_

 _'In colonial news, Contact was lost with the Sigma Argolis Monitoring Station last night, after the station reported detecting unusual energy patterns in the system. The USG are preparing a task group to go and investigate the cause of the lack of communication, but assured the public that the situation was fine and will be resolved shortly.'_

 _'You have an incoming call from Sebastian Rojas.'_ A synthetic voice spoke, cutting off the radio. The dashboard screen showed the caller ID, which Julius pressed the button to accept the call. "Rojas, what's happening, buddy?"

 _'Fenix, where you at, man? You need to get back to the Barracks now.'_

"I'm in Ephyra coming back from the Onyx Guard Academy. Why?"

 _'The whole 20th Rangers' has been mobilized, everybody's being called back. I think Command's gonna send us through the Relay.'_

"Fuck." He cursed, "Alright, I'm on my way back now. Probably take about an hour to get there."

 _'Alright, man. See you then.'_ And with that, Julius ended the phone call and drove through Ephyra, making his way to the highway that would lead to Ilima Army Base. Picking up speed on the highway, his mind pondered whether or not they should be worried.

Losing contact with a monitoring station wasn't necessarily a call for concern. The vast distances those signals are travelling can often interfere, leading to periods of relative quietness among the monitoring stations. And usually, there was a patrol fleet nearby to investigate it if needed. But this monitoring station is 8,000 lightyears on the other side of a Relay, meaning it could be something else entirely.

"Ah, shit." Was all he muttered as he continued to speed down the highway to Ilima Army Base.

* * *

 _ **0801  
41 Minutes Later  
**_ _ **Ilima Army Base**_

Ilima Army Base. A massive, multi-complex base built over 200 years ago by the New Republic of Tyrus. With numerous barracks capable of housing 3 divisions, or 36,000 Gears, multiple motor pools, and an Airfield, Ilima Army Base was a sight to behold.

* * *

Julius pulled into the parking lot near his barracks and shut off his vehicle. Stepping out and closing the car door behind him, he raced inside. He entered the building and jogged over to where his bunk and locker was. Waiting over there was his squadmate, and best friend, Sebastian Rojas.

"Hurry and get over here, man. They getting ready to brief us." He spoke, as he walked down the room to where all the other Gears were.

* * *

At 6'0", 180 pounds, and 20 years old, Rojas was one of the only people on Sera Julius could call a friend, let alone his best friend. Rojas had known Julius since they were 6 years old, as the two were both picked on quiet a bit in school and often had to fend for themselves. Then they both decided to band together, later becoming close friends and had always had each others back since. Rojas has a slightly darker skin complexion, with black hair and baby blue eyes to match. On his left arm he had a tattoo with the word GEARS running the length of his upper arm, with two Gears Soldiers, in full combat gear, running out beside it.

* * *

"So any word on what exactly we're doing." Julius questioned as he walked over to the group, stopping next to Rojas.

"Not anything officially, but they told us we were mobilizing within minutes of word coming out that Sigma Argolis went dark. So chances are, they're sending us through the Relay."

"What the hell's got them all spooked?" Asked Kumar, a slightly older Gear with red hair and brown eyes, as he leaned over to them.

"Beats me, man. Maybe they think pirates or insurgents attacked it." Rojas replied.

"Company! Atten-tion!" The Gears all went to attention at the shout, all facing to the front. At this point, their CO, Captain Lao, walked into the room. "At ease, everyone. Gather 'round." The Gears moved in around the Captain, who faced all of them in front of the large monitor screen that descended down from the ceiling. As the screen turned on, the Emblem for the USG appeared on screen.

"Alright, boys and girls. Listen up. As most of you know, last night, at 0002 hours, contact was lost with Sigma Argolis' monitoring station after they detected several unusual energy spikes on their sensors." The Captain looked around the room, "That is, at least, the official story we told the public."

Murmurs began to stir within the Gears as Lao continued, "The truth, however, is that before contact was lost, Sigma Argolis was able to snap several photos on their long range probes on what cause the energy spikes." The monitor screen behind him changed to show a picture of Sigma's Gas Giant, HK416, and a couple of its orbiting moons. But their was something else in the picture as well, hiding with one of the moon's shadow.

Then Julius saw it. 12 large objects, bulky and angular, with a couple bulbous sections. He knew those weren't natural.

"Folks, what you are looking at, is an unknown group of what appear to be spaceships entering HK416's orbit. We know they're not any of the local pirates. We have what appears to be a first contact scenario."

Murmurs of "Holy shit." and "Damn." ran amok in the group. Captain Lao cleared his throat, "As most of you know, the 8th Battalion, along with the rest of the 20th Regiment, is going through the Prism Mass Relay with Battlegroup Proximus. Our orders are to land at the Monitoring station and ensure it's secured, while the fleet deals with the unknowns. We don't know if the aliens are hostile at this time, but our orders are to assume hostilities until proven otherwise."

"Rangers, you will go down there, secure that station, and if these ETs prove hostile... you will fuck them up properly as Gears do!" Cheers of approval came from the Gears as Captain Lao finished his speech. He smirked, "Alright, Rangers! Gear up and prepare to leave in 30 minutes. Shuttles are already waiting on us. Dismissed!"

* * *

 _ **0826  
25 Minutes Later**_

"Everyone's here? Good, load up on the transport, now! Let's go!" Captain Lao shouted over the roar of the Strato-Falcon's engines, as the 8th Ranger Battalion all loaded onto their respective transports.

* * *

Julius and Rojas sat next to one another on the craft, as they waited for it to take off. "So, you think we're going to war?" Rojas spoke.

"I don't know, Rojas. All I know is that we're gonna find out when we get there. That, and if it does, you're standing in front when they start shooting." He smirked.

Rojas gave him a light jab on the shoulder, "Fuck you." the both chuckled.

"Okay, everyone. We're taking off! Strap in!" The pilot shouted. The Strato-Falcon rumbled as the thrusters lifted the craft off the ground, the troop bay ramp closing as the Falcon got higher and higher off the ground. Once the ramp was closed, the thrusters roared as the Falcon and the other transports flew upwards towards the Battlegroup in orbit.

* * *

The craft flew higher and higher into the atmosphere, until they were greeted with the black void of space. Nearby, they could see the Battlegroup waiting for them. Several of the Strato-Flacons were already entering the ships as their craft flew in and boarded one of the Destroyers.

The Battlegroup, numbering 10 ships, consisted of 1 Sargasso-Class Cruiser, 3 Forward unto Dawn-Destroyers, and 6 Thanos-Class Heavy Frigates, prepared for an FTL jump towards the Mass Relay in order to speed up getting to Sigma Argolis. With FTL Drives that could go about 6.2 Light-years a day, and with the fact they were already halfway across the Onyx System, they would reach the relay in just a couple hours.

* * *

 _ **Forward unto Dawn-Class Destroyer  
CSS-Up in Flames DD-45  
Personnel Bay  
**_ _ **0952**_

 _'Attention, all personnel. We are approaching the Prism Mass Relay. Standby for Relay jump in t-minus 5 minutes. All combat teams are to gear up and prepare for deployment. Captain Richards, out.'_ The intercoms blared as the massive ship's engines rumbled, continuing towards the massive celestial object floating where the Dwarf Planet Prism once was.

The Personnel Bay was, in actuality, more or less the storage bay of the ship, where vehicles, ground troops and fighters are kept until need. With two seperate bays located near the rear of the ship, the exit points for air vehicles, which there were 6 of, were triple-sealed in order to protect the interior of the ship from hostile fire, as well as preserve the internal pressure and atmosphere. Currently, the

* * *

"I hope this isn't gonna be just another false alarm. That shit really pisses me off. Better be some pirate skulls or something to cave in, cause I'm getting anxious for some action." A Gear behind Julius began talking with a couple of his friends, much to their vocals of approval. Julius could only snort in amusement as he continued putting his combat armor on.

Apparently, the snort had been loud enough to catch the man's attention, as he looked over to Julius and questioned, "What's up? Don't feel the same way? Nervous?" his buddies chuckled slightly. He walked over and got roughly a foot away from Julius, looking him dead in the eye.

Julius looked right back, observing every detail about the person in front of him. The red hair, moss green eyes. The rank of Private on his BDU. He could tell right away that this man was either just fresh from basic or had only been in for a month or two max. The last time his unit saw action was against an insurgency in Ostruth about 4 months ago. Either way, no point busting this guys balls over who's the bigger badass.

"You're obviously new, so I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. Be careful what you wish for, especially in our line of work." Julius replied, before looking back to his armor and resuming to put it back on. The chest piece gave a hiss as it sealed together with the other armor components and pressurized the inside.

"Tch, whatever, man. This chickenshit over here, man." The man continued to taunt and mock, obviously not taking his words seriously, as he and his buddies walked away.

"You just know just exactly what to say to make yourself popular with everybody, huh?" Rojas chuckled as he walked over, fully geared and helmet in hand.

"Whatever." Julius said as he finished putting on the last pieces of his armor, the L426 Hydra Combat Armor, then flexing his arms to make sure they were on properly.

* * *

After attaching the last piece of the denim blue colored armor on, Julius walked over and grabbed his weapons out of the weapons locker. He pulled out an G32A4 'Saber' Assault Rifle, an S4 'Butcher' Shotgun, and his trusted G12 'Fox' Heavy Pistol. He went about inspecting each and all of his weapons, to ensure there weren't any deficiencies in them. Rojas, having already done his weapons maintenance, walked over and helped out his old friend.

* * *

Fenix and Rojas finished up the maintenance check on the weapons, and placed all three weapons on the magnetic clamps on Julius' back. The two Gears then walked over to where the rest of the platoon was. Everybody was relaxed and calm, chatting and cheerfully conversing with one another. One would think that everything was fine, and that they were about to enter a possibly hostile situation. Julius hoped this is exactly what it would end up being.

"So any bets on what this'll will end up being?" One of the rangers, LCP Jones, questioned. He leaned back on the locker he was propped against.

"Tch, probably nothing. Aliens were probably just passing through and didn't even notice us." Pvt Garcia replied nonchalantly as she took a seat next to him.

"Hell, maybe they want to pick a fight."

"Hope not, man. Rather not wanna see where that goes."

"Aww, poor baby. Griffin's probably hoping for some hot alien chicks so he can finally get laid." A chorus of laughter erupted at the man's expense.

"Hey, fuck you, Petkov."

"Tch, I wouldn't be laughing, Petkov. I'd rather pick him over your ugly ass any day." Garcia remarked, earning even more laughter from the group.

Petkov flicked her off before proceeding to grab his genitals and speaking to Garcia, "Right here, honey. Dig in."

"What about you, Fenix. What do you think?"

Fenix, who had been deep in thought, was snapped out his trance and looked at the group before him, all eyes on him in anticipation of his response. Looking back and forth amongst the crowd, he felt extremely self-conscious and out of place. He didn't like being the center of attention. Never had, never will. That was more his brother's department, anyway.

Gathering his thoughts, he replied, "Can't say for certain. I just know we'll find out when we get there."

"Aw, come on, man. You seriously don't have-"

 _'Attention, all personnel. We are preparing to jump through the Prism Mass Relay. All Ground Forces, report to your respective transports and prepare for action. Jumping through relay in t-minus 30, 29, 28, 27...'_

"Okay, everyone this is it. Mount up and prepare to drop. Move it, Rangers!" Captain Lao bellowed he and his squad got onboard one of the Strato-Falcons. Everybody else grabbed their rifles and did the same.

"Julius, let's go." Rojas spoke as the two ran with the rest of their platoon over to their transport. By the time everyone had gotten a seat on their repective crafts, the countdown was in the last few seconds before they would jump through the Relay. Several talked amongst themselves, other closed their eyes and rested. Julius simply sat there and looked out the open ramp, reminiscing about something he shouldn't be thinking of at the moment.

"You alright, man?" Rojas got his attention, causing him to look at his best friend and notice the concern in his eyes.

"Yeah, just a little uneasy that's all. I'll be good." He replied, leaning back in the seat as the countdown continued.

 _'5, 4, 3, 2, 1...'_

Fenix and the rest of the Gears suddenly had a feeling of weightlessness that quickly dissipated as the ship shuttered fiercely, signalling it had gone through the Mass Relay. Fenix looked down to his orbital helmet, the polarized visor giving a reflection of his face in the reflection. Flipping it around, he put the helmet on and the helmet immediately connected with the body armor, his body now completely sealed and protected from the vacuum of space they were about to enter.

"Okay, Rangers. Let's get ready to rock!" Was all he heard as he primed his Saber and revved the weapon's chainsaw.

* * *

 **And our story begins...  
(EPIC GEARS MUSIC BEGINS PLAYING!)**

 **Alright, guys. First off, sorry that this took longer than I thought it would. Been having a bit of brain fart and writer's block for the better part of two weeks. :/ Not fun. But, hopefully you guys enjoyed this chapter and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.**

 **PS- Do remember that I'm working on two other stories at the same time as this one, so bear with me as it might take a while before the next chapter comes out.**

 **-Azores**

 **Ceranium- A very strong and resilient Hybrid metal created from Titanium molecularly enhanced with Ceramic Armor.**

 **Gears Military Ranking System is based off the United States Marine Corps.**


	3. ACT 1 PART 2

**I don't Gears of War or Mass Effect.**

 **Bold-My Own Words**

 ** _Bold & Italic-Locations, Time & Calendar_**

Normal-Narrative

"Normal"-Person Speaking

'Normal'-Thoughts

 _"Italic"-Foreign Languague_

 _'Italic'-Radio Chatter_

 _/Italic\\-AI/Computer typing_

* * *

 **Hey guys! Just wanted to let you know that I'm now co-writing this story with another writer named PoseidonN7. He's a new writer on Fanfiction who's a fan of the Mass Effect Universe, so he'll be helping out and co-writing the story with me from now on. He's also working on a couple stories of his own as well, so would love it if you guys would show him some support.**

 **Anyway, onto the chapter.**

* * *

 **Theme Song for Chapter: 'Hope Runs Deep' on the Gears of War 2 Soundtrack.**

* * *

 **14th of Bloom, 2275 (415 AE)  
1100 Hours  
Sigma Argolis System  
Mass Relay  
2,161,000 km from Planet HK416**

* * *

 **Act 1  
Part 2**

 **"A New Foe"**

* * *

 _ **Sigma Argolis Mass Relay**_

HK416 was a massive purple Gas Giant, with a Saturn-like ring around it. Some 22 moons circled it in orbit, one of which, HKS14, was where the Sigma Argolis Monitoring Station was located. The Sigma Argolis System didn't have much of value to the USG, save for the various moons that orbited HK416, but none had been properly geo-surveyed for resources, as the USG was more focused on the Star Systems they currently had colonized at the moment.

Nearby was the Mass Relay of the System, which connected to the Prism Relay in the Onyx System. USG Scientists at Sigma Station, however, speculated that the Relays are connected with others, but have been unable to further investigate. Now the Station has gone quiet, though. And the USG wanted to know why.

The Mass Relay came to life as 10 Coalition Warships entered the System, in a loose formation. After completing the jump, they sped towards HKS14, dividing into two groups. One consisting of one Destroyer and two Frigates, while the rest of the group patrolled the planet.

* * *

 _ **Forward unto Dawn-Class Destroyer  
CSS-Up in Flames DD-45  
Personel Bay**_

 _ **Approaching Orbit of HKS14**_

"Okay, boys and girls! We're getting ready to take off!" The Strato-Falcon Pilot called up from the cockpit. The soldiers inside braced themselves as the gunship's engines roared to life and the back ramp raised up and closed, sealing the occupants inside. Julius readjusted in his seat as the craft began to slowly rise off the ground.

 _'8th Battalion. You are green-light for deployment.'_

 _'Roger, that. 8th, moving out.'_

The passenger bay shuddered as the craft was propelled forward. This continued for several more moments, before the outside noise suddenly dampened considerable, almost down to a hum. This was how Julius knew they were no longer in the Up in Flames. They were now propelling through the dark vacuum of space, towards their objective.

All that was left to do now, was wait until they got there.

* * *

 ** _21 Minutes Later  
_** ** _Descending towards HKS14_**

As they began to enter the orbit of HKS14, they could begin to see the massive facility below them. The facility, was made up of 12 large buildings, with three massive satellite arrays and a large observatory in the middle of them all spread out across an area of roughly 5 square miles. Each of the buildings were interconnected by both tunnels and tubes, both above and below ground. While there were a limited number of AAA defenses to defend against small comets and any possible pirates, the larger caliber defenses hadn't been installed yet, being slated for construction and deployment next year.

The first thing that the Rangers noticed, though, was that the station had what looked like signs of damage all around the structures, but it was still too far away to tell with the naked eye. Julius also noticed what looked like drop-pods all around the interior of the complex. These drop-pods had a roughly, almost organic look to them.

"Alright, boys and girls. We'll be touching down in 2 mikes. Be ready."

The Rangers inside all stood up and prepared to quickly departed the Strato-Falcon once it touched down. While it wasn't known if the Aliens were hostile or not, that didn't change the fact their transport would be a sitting duck the moment it landed. And none of the humans inside wanted to give the aliens an easy target.

 _'Damn, looks like somebody took a sledgehammer to the place. Repeatedly.'_ Fenix heard somebody comment over the comms. He glanced out the small viewports that had their covers removed to take a look at the Facility below. It wasn't a pretty site.

The monitoring station had looked as if it had been in a warzone. The satellite arrays were either heavily damaged or outright destroyed. Several buildings were badly damaged as well, a couple of which looked as though their hulls were compromised and had vented atmosphere. He could see the drop-pods more clearly now, their 'organic' features more apparent. They were mostly sleek and curved, with a dirty brownish color to them and a shape similar to a chicken egg, albeit more rough and bumpy. He noticed that they partly embedded into the buildings.

'Boarding Parties.' He thought. Looks like the Aliens might be hostile after all.

"Up in Flames, this is 8th Battalion, we got what looks like boarding crafts on the side of the buildings, over." He could hear Captain Lao speak, as he checked his Saber Assault Rifle. Looking over to Rojas, whose visor was already polarized, his friend simply shrugged as they waited to touch down. As the aircraft arrived at one of the designated landing pads for the base, the Strato-Falcon's doors suddenly opened, expelling what little oxygen was left inside the troop bay.

"Alright, let's go! We ain't getting paid to sit around. Move out!" the Captain ordered as the Rangers all departed off the vehicle and went about setting up a perimeter near the bulkhead doors. One thing Fenix noticed almost immediately, was that there were still a couple of the stations transports still sitting at the landing pad, showing no signs of any interaction.

* * *

The soldiers entered through the bulkhead, the doors closing behind them as the last one entered. Once the doors finished sealing, air was pumped into the room as the soldiers waited for the second set of doors to open. A synthesized voice could be heard on the intercoms, _'Welcome to the Sigma Argolis Observation Outpost. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Station is currently under lockdown protocols.'_ the voice continued as the room finished pressurizing and adding air to the room, the second bulkhead doors finally opened.

A massive room, a waypoint for people who've just arrived, revealed itself before the combat team as they spread out and secured the room. Other than the occasional speaking from the intercom, the room was eerily quiet, all but the emergency lighting off. It seemed as if everyone here had simply up and abandoned the place.

"Anyone got eyes on anything?" Fenix asked as he walked towards a small storage room and glanced inside. Nothing was there save for some cleaning equipment. Rojas walked up beside him, rifle scanning the room as he glanced over to his friend. He shook his head. Fenix sighed, none of this was looking good to him.

"Alright, this area is secured for now." Captain Lao spoke as he relaxed his posture and lowered his rifle. Touching a hand to his comms, he spoke, "CSS-Up in Flames, this is 8th Battalion Lead, over."

Static was all he could hear in the headset. He tried again.

"CSS-Up in Flames, this is 8th Battalion Lead, come in, over."

Nothing. Just more static. He tried contacting one of the other combat teams on the ground, only to receive static as well. "What the hell?"

"Must be some kinda jammer, sir. We'll have to find where it is and shut it down." Pvt Garcia spoke up.

"Alright, then. Sgt Rogers, take your squad and locate the communications array. It'll take us a while to locate the jammer so we'll use the installation's intercoms to speak to one another until we can find it." The Captain ordered, "The rest of us are going to stay here and fortify this area."

Everyone went to work getting the room locked down, while Sgt Rogers walked over to Fenix and Rojas, "Alright, guys. Let's go get the comms back on." He looked back, "Garcia! Petkov! Jones! Let's go! We don't have all day!" The three soldier jogged over to the group as the six proceeded towards one of the doors.

* * *

Fenix hadn't known Calvin Rogers for long. He was new to the group, having only arrived some 3 months back after his old sergeant retired. Fairly young for a Sergeant at age 22, he had apparently received top marks in the military cadet program back in his school years in Ostruth. Despite not knowing him for long, Fenix had come to like and respect the man, as he was well mannered and got along with everybody in the unit. He also showed to be a decent leader during the war games. Though this would be the sergeants first test in a possibly hostile situation, Fenix wasn't too terribly worried about him.

Boris Petkov, on the other hand, was a different story. Fenix personally didn't like the man. He was full of himself, joked around too much, and was too much of a womanizer. Being the squad's support gunner carrying a S85A2 'Spitfire' LMG, had only added to his already inflated ego. The 25 year old Gorassinian also seemed to have a habit of teasing and pissing off anyone he thought were 'competition' to his supposed status as one of the 'toughest bastards' in the unit. Namely Fenix, due to his family heritage and much to his annoyance. It had gotten so bad a few times had nearly ended in a full out fight with the man. Needless to say, Fenix typically tried to stay away from Petkov as much as possible.

Annabelle 'Anna' Garcia was another person in the group he got along with, though they typically didn't speak too often. She was the squad's combat engineer, using drones and various gadgets to help them overcome various obstacles that they faced. 5'9", 140 pound, the impressionable 19 year old Tyran had quickly made a name for herself in the group, showing off her skills with electronics early on, despite being a little bit meek at times. Garcia had always talked in a positive manner when either speaking to Fenix or about him, from what he had heard. He had long suspected that she may have a crush on him or something, as a lot of women did, though most were simply after his family name.

Ryan Jones, on the other hand, he rarely talked to. It wasn't that the LCP got on his nerves or anything, just merely the fact that the two just didn't talk much. The 21 year old Pelles native served as the group's grenadier, his Saber Assault Rifle having a grenade launcher equipped on the bottom. Jones was typically quiet and reserved, though he would speak to the group occasionally. Fenix frankly didn't know too much about him, as he transferred from another unit just a month ago. From what he had seen, however, Jones was alright, albeit a little bit quiet.

These were the men and women who made up Fenix and Rojas' squad, Bravo.

* * *

The six-man squad moved up the hallway, weapons raised and scanning for anything hostile. Fenix and Rojas were in the front of the group, Saber Rifles sweeping from side to side for anything looking to fight. As they continued on, they noticed that occasionally there were bullet holes in the walls, along with what appeared to be a slash mark of some sort.

"What the hell are those?" Rojas questioned as he walked past one of the slash marks, "Looks like somebody took a damn sword to the wall."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Garcia joined in.

"Whatever it is, I doubt it was any of our boys. Stay alert." Fenix replied, not even bothering to glance back. A few moments later, they came upon another door. Fenix noticed something slumped up beside the door on the ground. A body and their first casualty.

The body in question was a security guard. He had apparently been attempting to fight off whatever was coming towards his position in an attempt to either get in or hold off. Several expended shotgun shells lay scattered around him, but his weapon was missing. The man himself had what looked like two gunshot wounds in the lower waist, along with a massive slash going across his chest, exposing and spilling the the man's organs onto the floor. While not exactly military-grade armor, the security guard's armor had apparently offered no resistance to whatever 'cut' him. The man's face was frozen with a look of pure terror.

"Oh god. What did this?" Rojas asked as he knelt down and observed the body.

"Same thing that attacked the station." Was all Fenix replied as he walked over to the door. Shining his helmet's headlight on it, he noticed the bloodstains on the door and floor. He already knew there was too much for it all to belong to the security guard. Raising his Saber, he motioned Garcia to open the door while he covered. Connecting her hacking device with the door's controls, she interfaced with the controls until she succeeded in getting the door to open.

When she did, Bravo Squad immediately wished she hadn't.

* * *

The massive room inside was a bloodbath, to put it bluntly. Blood, gore, and bodies littered the room. Bullet holes, bullet cases, numerous slash marks littered the room. There were even a couple signs that explosives were used. Fenix wondered where they got those from. Most of the bodies had what looked like lab coats or civilian attires, with maybe 5 of the bodies having security guard attire. This had been no defense, this had been a slaughter. And from the smell of the room, these bodies had been here rotting for a while.

"Oh my god..." Garcia whispered, as they entered the room.

"What the hell?" Petkov spoke up.

Fenix scanned the room with his Assault Rifle, looking for anything out of place. As he scanned, he glanced over to his left and noticed something on the table, with a body slumped over it, too dark to make out due to the low lighting. Shining his flashlight on it, he saw it was a bloodstained datapad. Walking over to it, he reached down to grab the datapad, wriggling it free from the body slumped over it.

"You find something, Fenix?" He heard Sgt Rogers speak up as the rest of the squad continued scanning the room.

"Yeah, a datapad. Might have some info on what went down."

"Oh, I can already tell you what went down, Fenix. These people got slaughtered." Petkov retorted.

"I meant about who we're dealing with, dipshit. We need intel on what we're up against."

"And you think there might be some footage on that or something?" Rogers questioned.

"Either that or we spend hours heading for the control room, and look through all the security cameras if they still work." Fenix replied. He walked over to Garcia, handing her the bloodied datapad. "Alex, tap into it and see if you can find anything." Garcia merely nodded and went to work on the datapad.

"Guys, you might wanna see this." They heard LCP Jones speak up from the other side of the room, around a corner. They walked down the room to find Jones and Rojas standing roughly 10 feet from a massive hole in the ground. The hole was maybe 10 feet across and seemed to go several feet down. What was odd was that the floor looked as though it had been pushed in not out, as the edges of the flooring sloped down into the hole. Adrenaline levels spiked and fear gripped the group slightly as old stories and photos of the Human-Locust War resurfaced in their minds.

"The fuck? How did they dig this so quickly?" Petkov questioned as he shown his headlight at the hole.

"It's just like those old stories about the Locust. Coming out of the ground, slaughtering everybody, no enemy bodies to speak of." Rojas muttered.

"There no way it's fucking Locust. They're all dead. This hole is probably connected to other parts of the facility they took over." Rogers quickly addressed, trying to reassure the others, though he didn't seem convinced himself.

"G-got it. It's unlocked." Garcia suddenly announced, holding the datapad in the air to show she'd unlocked it.

Taking the pad from her, Rogers checked the ID info for the datapad's owner.

 _/Device User ID:\  
_ _/Steven Ranson\  
/Age:\  
/52\  
/Country of Origin:\  
/Pelles\  
/Occupation:\  
/Overseer of Sigma Argolis Station\  
_

This explained why the thing was so damn encrypted. The owner was basically the guy running the entire monitoring station. The datapad had hundreds of terabytes of info and data, most of it regarding the stars/planets of interest that the site was observing, potential mining sites on the system's asteroid belt, etc. None of it was what he was looking for. Rogers narrowed down the search to the past 39 hours, basically whatever happened or was cataloged in the past day and a half. He still had a good 2 gigabytes of data left to search through, but it showed much more of what he was looking for. Scrolling through the video files, he found one that looked like what he was looking for.

 _/Video File Number 2058\  
_ _/File ID: 'Alien Life!'\  
/Play?\_

Rogers tapped on the touchscreen, causing the video to load up and play. The video loaded up and started off to show a man, the very same man whose corpse they had taken the datapad off of, sitting in front of the pad, obviously excited about something.

"Today has turned into a remarkable day! I-I don't even know where to begin." Dr. Ranson seemed giddy, which would make sense given that nobody's ever seen aliens before. "Today about 30 minutes ago, we detected several unidentified objects enter the system at a speed far too quick to be something like an asteroid or a comet! After doing scans and measurements to see how fast the objects were going before entering the system, our VIs concluded that the objects were travelling at roughly 16 Light Years per Day! This could have only meant one thing. We've just detected an Alien Craft!"

"And that's not all! There's appears to be roughly 12 of them all together, the largest of which measured some 1300 meters in length. This is truly a remarkable discovery! While we long speculated that there was other life in the Galaxy, to actually see first hand evidence and proof... It's just remarkable, all of it." His face suddenly turned into a scowl, "Of course, the security teams, with the Squad of Onyx Guard taking charge, have ordered an emergency shutdown of all critical systems. They don't want the aliens knowing about our location yet, which I can understand their hesitance, but the sheer significance of this is too much for us to merely hide away."

"Holy shit, they have Onyx Guard stationed here?" Petkov spoke, as he listened in on the video.

"Wonder if anyone's still alive? Survived all this?" Rojas questioned, looking around the room. "If anyone could have, it's likely that Squad of Onyx Guard. They're not known as the toughest bastards in the COG for no reason." Fenix answered as he kept watching the video.

Back on the video, Ranson looked around, making sure nobody was too close to him, before leaning in and whispering, "So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I secretly sent the aliens a message-"

"He did what?!" Rogers gasped.

"-and triangulated our location to them! This is land me in serious trouble if the USG ever found out, but I covered my tracks well enough. Not only that, but now we'll be remembered, I'LL be remembered as the one who established contact with Aliens for the first time in our history! It's all just too significant for us to just pass up!" Ranson had officially gone nuts in the eyes of Bravo Squad. The man looked excited beyond belief in the video before it ended soon after.

"Crazy son of a bitch got everyone here killed so he could have a little fame and glory." Rojas glanced back over at the dead body that was now identified as Ranson's, "Hmph, looks like that worked out well for him."

* * *

"Is there anything else?" Petkov asked.

Rogers shooked his head, "No. This was the last video. There's a few photos showing the ships getting closer and closer, but nothing else. Whatever happened here, they were hit hard and fast."

"Well shit, so much for that. All we got was how they found out about the base. Maybe if the camera systems still work we can get some more footage." Garcia joined in.

"Alright, then. Aside from that, we'll continue on mission and try to get to the communications room." Rogers spoke as he opened up his datapad and pulled out a holographic display of the base, with a red dot showing their current location. He typed in the location for the communications room. The map showed the communications room in an adjacent building connected via several surface and underground tubes.

"Okay, we'll follow this tunnel here to the other building and work our way to the communications room. I don't need to tell any of you to stay sharp and watch your surroundings. We still don't know what exactly we're dealing with, so stay alert and call out anything that doesn't look right, got it?" Rogers commanded, earning a nod of acknowledgment from everyone in return. "Alright, let's move, Bravo."

* * *

 ** _15 minutes later...  
Service Tunnel in between Docking Bay and Communications Building_**

Bravo squad moved down the service tunnel towards their objective Building, weapons raised and scanning their surroundings. The service tunnel was wide, some 12 meters across and 8 meters tall, large enough for most commercial vehicles on Sera to travel through it. Limited lighting was in the tunnel, so they all had their VISR activated, with the lowlight filter on to give them extra visibility, allowing them to see various boxes, vehicles, and equipment laid about in the tunnel. Bravo Squad moved down the tunnel, spread out with Fenix and Rojas in the lead. Weapons were raised, scanning for anything that looked hostile. One thing that they had notice on their trek down here was that for every sign of battle they came across, they never saw signs of enemy casualties. No blood, no bodies, nothing.

That unnerved them heavily, because it implied that either the Aliens collected their dead and were very thorough about it, or these Aliens were beyond Humanity's ability to fight them. But none of them tried to focus on that at the moment.

* * *

"Hey, so something's been bugging me ever since we saw that video. How did Ranson sneak out a transmission to the Aliens? Shouldn't the station's AI have noticed that?" Garcia suddenly questioned in a low voice.

"Station doesn't have one yet. Slated for addition next year with the extra construction." Rogers answered.

"Shit, for real? Figure that'd be one of the first things they added." Rojas spoke.

"You would think so, makes a lot of sense. But the station's so lightly defended, as opposed to say Maverick Station, that COG Military didn't want to risk pirates or somebody getting their hands on an AI. Not that it would have done these guys any good." Rogers continued, as the group came upon another dig hole on the bottom left side of the tunnel. On the edge of it, the body of a technician, minus the lower half, was sprawled out with several deep gashes on their back. The squad slowly and carefully made their way past it, at least two of them having their weapons trained on it at all times as they went past it. The squad all made their way past it without incident, and proceeded to move on towards the Communications Building.

Until they heard a sound come from the hole.

All six members of Bravo immediately turned around towards the hole, weapons aimed. Cautiously, the squad encircled the hole, making sure not to get too close as the sound was heard once again. It was faint, but it was there.

"S-Sarge..." Garcia called out, the nervousness and fear evident in her voice.

"Stay calm." Rogers ordered. The sound was heard again, this time it was more distinct and clear. It sounded... aquatic in nature, or maybe reptilian. Fenix didn't know nor did he care at the moment. He focused his Saber Assault Rifle on the hole, waiting for anything to pop out as the sound was heard once more. The group readied for something to appear out of the hole.

Several tense moments passed as they waited, not taking their eyes off the hole as the sounds got louder and louder, but otherwise nothing else happened.

Fenix's motion tracker suddenly lit up, showing multiple dots coming towards them. From both sides of the tunnel. "Shit! Sargeant!" Fenix turned towards the tunnel leading to the Communications Building. Rogers and the rest of the Squad turned as well, "We got company, Bravo! Eyes up!"

They could hear the sound of several creatures moving towards them, but a transport car that had crashed into the wall was blocking a majority of their view. The Squad spread out and took cover behind various objects as they readied for whatever was coming towards them. For Fenix, who had taken cover behind a set of crates with Jones next to him, it felt like an eternity before the creatures could finally be seen. A trio of creatures suddenly rounded the corner of the vehicle, in a full sprint before coming to a halt when they spotted Bravo Squad.

* * *

The creatures each stood roughly 8 feet tall and were humanoid in appearance, two legs and two arms. But that's largely where the similarities end, as these creatures had a slightly hunched back as they seemed to be leaning forward and hunched over every time they ran, their torso leading up to mildly slender neck with an elongated head. They were clad in dark navy blue armor, with several streaks of forest green and gray across various parts of the chest and leg armor. Their helmets covered most of their heads, save for leaving the lower jaw exposed. Their helmets showed two eye-ports that glowed an ominous green color. At first, Fenix thought they were unarmed, until he noticed that every one of their right arms had a large device, smooth and angular in nature, that was wrapped around the forearm.

The creature snarled and growled in their strange language, likely speaking to one another as they moved forward and took cover.

"Bloody hell." Petkov muttered out as he readied to fire his weapon.

One of the creatures suddenly bellowed, its roar a strange and unnatural sound, at the Rangers as the device on its hand suddenly expanded and extended out, a mid-length barrel expanding out past the creature's hand. Fenix and the rest of Bravo quickly realized the device was some kind of crazy looking firearm. The creature aimed the weapon at them and fired, followed by its two companions.

"Watch out!" Rojas roared as the weapons unleashed a stream of bullets from their barrels, the Alien assault rifles kicking up dirt and bits of cover around the squad. "Fuck!" Fenix growled as he rose out of cover and returned fire, his Saber thundering as 8.5mm rounds flew downrange towards the aliens. Several other members of the squad joined in and returned fire as well. Several of the alien rounds struck Fenix's Kinetic Barrier, warnings blaring in his helmet for him to take cover, which he did. Glancing out of cover, he could see two more aliens coming in from behind the vehicle to join their companions.

The Aliens growled and bellowed as they continued to engage Bravo Squad, neither side having a distinct advantage. Bravo had a slight numerical superiority, but the Alien weapons seemed to just spew out bullets at a ridiculous rate. Fenix heard a burst from one of the alien guns and could have sworn he heard some 20 or so bullets hit his cover in the span of a second. "Fucking hell! Enough of this shit! Jones lob a grenade, flush the bastards out!" Rogers ordered out as both he and Petkov laid down suppressive fire on the Aliens, forcing them back into cover.

Jones loaded up the grenade launcher on his Saber and angled it to fire. The grenade went out and landed amongst the Aliens before exploding, turning one of them into bloody, orange chunks of flesh and wounding a couple others. Rojas had noticed something when the grenade went off. He saw a glimmer around the Aliens as they took damage, which meant only one thing in his mind.

Ducking deeper into his cover as a few bullets flew overhead, Rojas shouted out, "Son of a Bitch! Guys, I think they have Barriers, too!"

"Are you fucking kidding?!" Petkov roared out as his Spitfire LMG thundered away, sending rounds into one rather bold Alien that had decided to push up. Sure enough, the rounds were stopped by the glimmer of a Kinetic Barrier. Luckily for Petkov, the concentrated fire from the LMG quickly tore through the Barrier and tore into the Alien's flesh, the creature screaming its death throes as it fell. Fenix vaulted over his cover and used the distraction to push to another piece of cover closer to the Alien positions, the creatures roaring in frustration as they concentrated fire on Fenix for his move.

Rojas pushed up to another piece of cover with Rogers on his left flank while Petkov laid down suppressive fire from the back. One of the Alien chucked a device out towards the two that started beeping as it landed. Not wanting to find out what it does, both men leapt out of the cover and rolled away as the device exploded raining shrapnel and debris all around the tunnel.

"Shit. Garcia, send up a couple drones!" Rogers received no reply. "Garcia?" He blind fired over the cover as he tried to look around to see if he could locate her. A few seconds of looking and he found her, maybe a few meters ahead of the hole they had found. She was crouched behind cover, nervously peeking over before ducking right back in cover as a trio of rounds strafed her position.

"Garcia, what the fuck?! Get up here and deploy those drones, we need a distraction!" No reply, nor did she move from her spot. Either she was deliberately disobeying or she was suffering from some kinda shell shock. "GARCIA!" Rogers cursed, realizing that for now, until she snapped out of it, she wasn't going to be of any help.

"Frag out!" Fenix shouted as he chucked a grenade at the Aliens, an explosion following closely afterwards. Fenix took the initiative and charge forward towards the Aliens. One of them popped out of cover to fire, letting off a burst at Fenix that shattered his Barrier and tore into his armor before he returned fire, rounds slamming into the Kinetic Barrier of the Alien. They withstood the fire for a few seconds before shattering, followed up by several rounds slamming into the Alien's armor and flesh. The Creature reeled back and howled in pain, rolling backwards into a crouch as a glowing device activated on the Creature's left arm, taking the form of a glowing orange blade.

Cursing loudly, Fenix revved up his Saber's Chainsaw Bayonet and charged forward, not wanting to give the Alien a chance to swing. The Creature bellowed at the challenge and lunged forward. It was so close now that Fenix could see that it's lower jaw divided into three different parts, two mandibles to the side, filled with teeth and a lower jaw in the center, all connected together by a loose bit of skin.

The Creature swung high, looking to decapitate Fenix in one blow. The Ranger slide underneath the strike and brought his chainsaw upward, roaring as he sliced into the armor of the Alien. The Creature bellowed in pain as the chainsaw sawed its way through the armor, slowly but surely. The Alien attempted to disengaged, but Fenix wasn't going to let it, pressing his advantage and throwing more of his weight into the strike, causing the chainsaw to go even deeper.

The Alien shrieked out as it tried to bite him, repeatedly snapping its jaws just inches from his helmet. Fenix roared as he surged forward and cleaved his way into the flesh of the Alien, tearing out chunks of flesh and covering himself in orange gore before the Alien managed to free itself from him, but the damage had been done. The Creature toppled over, halfway to being sawed in half as it sprawled out on the ground and wheezed out its last breath.

Fenix turned and snapped his weapon up as he fired at the last remaining Alien. The Creature bellowed defiantly as it was gunned down by the collective fire of 5 COG Rangers. As it fell over, silence filled the tunnel once more.

Looking around, the Rangers looked for anymore sign of trouble, namely enemy reinforcements. After several moments of nothing, Fenix finally breathed out, "All Clear."

* * *

Almost immediately, Petkov growled out, "Alright then, so will somebody tell me what the fuck just happened?"

"Isn't that pretty obvious, dipshit? We just met our guests." Fenix replied sarcastically. Petkov walked right up into Fenix's face, growling.

"Not. That" He pointed over to their side. Looking over, Fenix saw Garcia slowly walking towards the group, her body trembling. He didn't even have to ask if she was okay. He knew she wasn't.

"What the FUCK happened back there, Garcia?! Why the hell didn't you do anything?!" Petkov snarled out. Garcia didn't reply, merely continued to looked down at the ground in shame. "I... I-"

"You what?! Froze up?! Panicked?! We could have gotten killed because of you!"

"Boris, relax-" Rogers started, but Petkov wasn't having it.

"Relax? How am I supposed to relax knowing she could freeze up again?! That kind of shit gets people killed."

"This is her first time seeing combat of any kind." Jones added in.

"That's not an excuse! If she does that again-"

"Hey, Fenix. What's up with that blood on you, man?" Rojas suddenly pointed at Fenix, drawing everyone's attention to him. Fenix, confused as to what he was talking about, raised up his weapon to take a look at it.

Sure enough, the orange blood all over him was slowly but surely fading away. Almost like it was evaporating. "What the hell?" Rogers softly questioned.

"So... I guess this explains why we weren't seeing any signs of them taking casualties." Fenix commented as he watched the blood continue to to evaporate.

"The hell's causing it to do that?" Jones asked.

"I don't know, maybe exposure to the air is causing it." Rogers shrugged, walking over to one of the Alien corpses to examine it.

* * *

Giving it a look over, he grabbed ahold of the deceased being's helmet and attempted to remove it. After a few seconds of fiddling with it, he succeeded in removing the helmet, revealing the rest of the Creature's face. The Alien's head was reptilian in shape and design, with bumpy, but surprising soft skin with a dark brown coloring, with a red colored ring around the two eyes. He could see two small slits in the front to indicate nostrils. It's eyes were like that of a viper, an ominous yellow with a thin blue pupil in the middle. Overall, the shape of the head reminded him of a Salamander or something, just a little more narrow and with the eyes closer together facing the front for binocular vision.

The body was large and robust, a physique definitely designed to take punishment, as evidence shown by Fenix's attempt to chainsaw one showed. It arms reached all the way to its waist, with 2 fingered, 2 thumbed hands. Its legs were digitigrade, with 3 rather large clawed toes. This meant that they could run pretty fast if they wanted to, much to Rogers' displeasure.

* * *

Rogers finally took a look at the weapon on the Creature's right arm. The rifle seemed to be built into the armor, with several lights and screens being displayed on the inside of the arm which likely told the Alien info about the weapon's condition, and with the ability to expand out and retract in whenever it needed to use it. It was, in his opinion, a fairly impressive design. Whatever the rifle fired, the Aliens apparent found a way around the problem of loading ammunition, due to the odd design.

Deciding he should try to remove it so they could take it back with them for research, he began to fidget with the weapon to see if there was a way to remove it.

"Sarge, what are you doing?" Garcia finally spoke up, walking over to the group.

"The R&D boys are gonna want some samples of their tech to take apart, so I'm trying to remove the damn thing's weapon to bring back with us." He continued to fidget with it, even going so far as to take his knife out and try to pry it off.

That was when the weapon started beeping rapidly, the tempo increasing with every second. The Squadmates looked at one another in horror, realizing that that might not have been a good idea. Rogers could only mutter out, "Oh shit..."

"TAKE COVER!" Fenix roared out as they all dove away from the body. A second later, the weapon self-destruct, engulfing the area in an large explosion.

* * *

 **And that's it for this chapter. See you next time.**

 **Also, as for the roars of the Aliens, I've decided to go with the ones used by the Hecatonchires Boss in God of War: Ascension. Hope you like.**

 **Also I think I've found an official song for this story. It's a fan mashup on youtube.**

 **Linkin Park & Eminem - Like Clockwork**

 **By Blaze Audio**

 **I don't know for sure, but the song sounds amazing and I think it's fits with the premise I'm going to go for in this story. Let me know your thoughts. As always, leave a review telling me your thoughts on the chapter. I welcome constructive criticism. If you got any Questions, feel free to pm me. I will get back with you.**

 **See you next time!**

 **-Azores**

 **PS. I'll have a Codex up next chapter with some of the weapons mentioned in this one.**


	4. ACT 1 PART 3

**I don't Gears of War or Mass Effect.**

 **Bold-My Own Words**

 ** _Bold & Italic-Locations, Time & Calendar_**

Normal-Narrative

"Normal"-Person Speaking

'Normal'-Thoughts

 _"Italic"-Foreign_ _Language_

 _'Italic'-Radio Chatter_

 _/Italic\\-AI/Computer typing_

* * *

 **Theme Song for Chapter: 'Flesh & Metal' From the Doom (2016) Soundtrack**

* * *

 **14th of Bloom, 2275 (415 AE)  
1127 Hours  
Sigma Argolis System  
** **HK416  
** **Sigma Argolis Observation Outpost  
**

* * *

 **Act 1  
** **Part 3**

 **"The Kodox"**

* * *

 ** _Service Tunnel in between Docking Bay and Communications Building_**

"What are you trying to prove, Julius?"

"He's a troublemaker."

"Look at this loser, all by himself!"

"He'll never amount to anything."

"I love you, bubba."

"JULIUS!"

Fenix's eyes shot open, letting out a short gasp, before groaning softly as he slowly stirred back into consciousness. The world around him was spinning, and his vision was blurry. The back of his head was aching, meaning he must of hit it on something. As he rose up, he notice his helmet's visor had a slight crack on the side, nothing that would compromise his suit if he needed to do a spacewalk, but something to keep an eye on at least. His memory slowly came back to him about the recent events that lead up to this point. Their platoon arriving at the outpost, his squad discovering the remains of the crew, the aliens attacking, Sgt Rogers tinkering with one of the alien bodies.

Rogers! His eyes widened, remembering what had happened.

"Julius!" Fenix rose to his feet and looked to his left towards the voice's source, but all he could see was dust and dirt that had been kicked up by the explosion. Through the 'fog', however, he could see Rojas running over to him with Petkov. "You okay?!"

Fenix waved him off "Where's the others?" He asked. The trio looked around the room, searching for the other half of their squad. Tracing back their steps to wear the alien corpses had been, all they found was but bits and pieces as the only evidence that they had ever been there.

Not too far away, they found what was left of Sergeant Calvin Rogers.

The explosion had warped and torn through his armor, severing him at the waist and leaving only part of his torso crumpled up against the wall. Needless to say, there wasn't much left to identify him. Fenix sighed, shaking his head in frustration, before walking over and searching the remains for the man's Cog-Tags. After finding them, he stowed them away in his pouch and walked back over to Rojas and Petkov.

* * *

"Dammit. What now?" Rojas asked.

"We find the other two and regroup with the rest of the company. We gotta let them know this place is still infested with hostiles." Fenix replied, looking around the tunnel for Garcia and Jones. "Garcia? Jones? Sound off!"

Looking over towards the crashed vehicle, Fenix could see the faint glow of a light near the end. Running over to it, he found Jones, lying on his back motionless. His visor was cracked and a small trinket of blood could be seen trickling down the side of his helmet. To Fenix's relief, however, Jones' vitals were still active.

"Shit, how is he?" Rojas asked as they ran up behind him.

"He's out but alive. Must of slammed his head on the truck when the device exploded." Fenix answered, grabbing Jones by the shoulder and lifting him up. Petkov ran over to grab his other shoulder, securing the man's Saber to his back, as they hoisted him up and moved to carry him, before Petkov waved them off. "I've got him. Find Garcia, I'll wait by the door."

Nodding, Fenix let go of Jones and allowed Petkov to carry him towards the doors. Motioning to Rojas, the two Rangers proceeded back to where their squad had been to look for the final member of their squad. Not taking any chances, they kept their rifles trained to wherever their heads scanned, looking for anymore of their newfound hostile opponents.

* * *

"She couldn't have been flung too far from us. She was the furthest from Rogers."

"Maybe same thing happened to her as Jones." Fenix replied, as they scanned their surroundings, "Hit her head and got knocke-" His sentence was cut short when he noticed something on his motion tracker. He immediately held his fist up, signalling Rojas to stop. It had been for a faint second, but he knew he had seen movement at the edge of his tracker, which was maxed out at 75 meters.

They had company.

"Julius..." Rojas whispered. The two Rangers continued scanning ahead of them, their vision still rather limited due to the dust still lingering in the air. Fenix didn't look at his friend, "We're not alone."

As soon as he had said that, the motion tracker came alive as well over a dozen dots could been seen coming towards them on the tracker. Both Rangers immediately sprinted to the nearest cover and prepared for a fight. They activated their visors' low light/visibility to give a better view in the dust. In the distance, they could see several more of the aliens moving towards their position, the intentions clear on all of their faces.

As they got ready to fight, they noticed movement amongst some of the cover to their front. Through the dust, the person revealed to be Garcia, who shakily rose to her feet using a pair of boxes as support. Her visor had been completely shattered, revealing her bloodied face underneath. She appeared to be dazed, meaning she may have a concussion. None of that mattered right now, though. She needed to get out of there.

"Cover me!" Fenix ordered as he vault over their cover towards Garcia. Rojas opened fire, bursts of 8.5mm rounds going downrange at the advancing aliens, who bellowed in anger at the and returned fire at the offender.

Fenix sprinted towards Garcia. She turned to look at him approaching her, the dazed look on her face confirmed to Fenix that she must of suffered a concussion of sorts. He could hear the bullets whizzing by his head and around him, urging him to sprint faster as he heard one of the aliens screech in pain. He called out to her, trying to desperately get her snap out of it as he had almost reached her mere feet separating them.

Before a colossus of an alien burst from the hole in the ground, landing behind her.

It was massive to say the least, from the same species by the look of it, but standing at least a foot and a half taller, covered in thick, sleek maroon colored armor, and had what looked like a massive shield, with a green stripe running down the center, that ran the length of its forearm in a dagger like shape. Fenix was momentarily distracted by the monster before them. Towering over the two Gears, the monster bellowed as it ignited a long orange blade on its right arm and lunged at Garcia. Fenix yelled out as Garcia turned just in time to see the blade pierce straight through her, and right through the crate behind her.

"No!" Fenix roared out, firing his Saber at the massive being, who responded by merely raising its shield in front, the bullets bouncing harmlessly off it. Its fellow aliens flanked around it, concentrating fire and forcing Fenix back into cover as he chucked a grenade at a trio of the creatures, earning a couple anguished screams and a geyser of body parts as the grenade went off.

* * *

The massive creature slowly lifted the impaled human on its sword closer to its face, the helmet deconfiguring and sliding back to allow the creature to look at her directly. Cold, amber-colored eyes stared into the dying ranger's own teal eyes, the creature emitting a rumble as it studied the being before it. Garcia spasmed softly a few times, blood coughing as her collapsed and punctured lungs painfully gasping for air, before her head slump down, the life having finally left her body. Snorting, the creature simply deactivated its sword, causing the now lifeless body to fall to the ground in a heap.

* * *

Turning it's attention back towards the two still living, and fighting, humans, it snarled as its helmet reassembled around its head, before stepping forward and bellowing out a warcry.

Fenix and Rojas, both still firing their weapons at the horde of alien beings that were charging them, shifted their fire on the larger threat, causing the colossus to raise its shield, growling in anger. Glaring and growling at its two opponents, the monster's body tensed up and started to glow blue suddenly, confusing the two rangers.

"The fuck's it doing?!"

"Nothing good. MOVE!" Fenix roared as the two backed off from the cover and attempted to disengage. The colossus wasn't having it, though. Its entire body now covered in a bluish glow, the alien roared as it threw its right hand forward, sending out a large ball of blue energy that slammed into the two Gears and sent them flying. Fenix and Rojas were both sent scrambling to the ground as the aliens charged, bellowing their war cries as they opened fire on the two Gears.

* * *

Fenix groaned, noticing that his armor was slightly warped on the left side and shoulder guard, but quickly sat up and fired a burst at one the aliens charging them, the rounds slamming into its barrier before the creature and two more near it exploded into a fine orange mist, causing the rest of the aliens to temporarily halt their advance. Behind them, Fenix could see both Petkov and a now conscious Jones trying to cover them. "Don't just sit there, assholes! Run!" Petkov commanded as his opened fire with his machine gun, the Spitfire thundering away as it chewed into both cover and the armor/barriers of the aliens.

Helping Rojas up, the two quickly bolted for their fellow gears and the large garage door at the end of the tunnel that they were at, ducking and weaving as bullets flew all around them.

"Jones, shut that door now!" Fenix ordered.

"Not until you're through!"

"That door won't close fast enough if they're right on our heels! Start shutting it, NOW!"

Cursing, Jones fired another grenade, then began tampering with the controls to shut the door. Fenix and Rojas both picked up the pace, now sprinting for the door as it started to close. Behind them, they could hear the colossal alien bellowing in anger as it charged forward after the two Gears, followed by its smaller companions. It seemed like for every meter the Gears covered as they ran, the aliens could cover it in half the time.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" Rojas cursed as they quickly slide under garage door as rounds bounced off and shattered his barrier, turning around to fire on the incoming aliens as the door slowly continued to close.

"Fucking hell, can't this thing go any slower?!" Petkov growled as he gunned down another one of the aliens. "Just hold them off for a little longer!" Fenix ordered as he fired a burst at an advancing group of aliens, killing one and forcing the other three to take cover as their barriers flared. But for every one they killed, it seemed another three would take its place, with the massive shield-bearing alien at the center of it, seeming to be coordinating all of the smaller ones.

Fenix cursed as he loaded another magazine, this was taking too long. At this rate, they'd get overrun before the garage door closed and sealed. Grabbing a grenade, he came up with a desperate plan. "Everybody chuck a grenade! Target the ones clustered together!"

Complying, all four of the Rangers chucked a grenade at a different group of the aliens that were a little too close together. Seconds later, four successive explosions rocked the service tunnel, kicking up dirt and alien gore all around. Jones followed up the grenade by firing another one from the grenade launcher, right at the massive alien. To their surprise, the giant raised his shield up and ricocheted the explosive off of his shield, causing it to explode harmlessly to the side.

Angered, the massive creature roared and began to glow blue again.

"What the hell?" Petkov asked as he fired at it with his Spitfire, the machine gun's rounds either bouncing off the shield or failing to break its barrier.

"Oh, shit! Get down!" Rojas roared as the massive alien ran forward and slammed its glowing right arm into the ground, sending a massive shockwave of blue energy out towards the four Ranger, sending them sprawling to the floor and flying back further into the garage. Behind them, they heard a massive metallic crash as they quickly got back up to their feet. Looking back towards the garage door, they noticed, by some sheer miracle, it had shut.

The creature's attack must of destroyed the door's mechanisms, causing it to slam shut. On the other side of the door, they could hear the aliens bellowing in anger and frustration at the escape of their foe.

* * *

"Holy shit. That was close." Petkov breathed out.

 **BOOM!**

The garage door bent slightly as they heard the massive shield-bearer roaring on the other side.

"That door's not gonna hold 'em off for long." Rojas commented, keeping his Saber trained on the door. "Let's get going. We need to keep moving towards the communications array." Fenix ordered. Petkov grunted in annoyance as he glanced at Fenix, but said nothing. Despite the fact he didn't really care for Fenix or any orders he tried to give, the chain of command meant that, since Rogers was dead, Fenix was now in command. So he was going to have to deal with it for now.

 **BOOM!**

The door was struck again, bulging out even further as the colossal alien roared again. "Go, go!" Rojas motioned as they all ran towards a door to their left. As they ran, they could still hear the sounds of the massive alien trying to break into the garage.

* * *

 **7 minutes later...  
5 levels beneath the Communications Building's Comms Center**

"Okay, everybody do an ammo check." Fenix spoke. Though they could see how much ammo they each had left on their HUDs, knowing how much your squadmates had was typically useful too. Jones and Petkov nodded but said nothing, nor did they bother to ask about whether or not Garcia had made it. It was fairly obvious as to what had happened.

"About a quarter light." Jones responded.

"About half spent." Petkov remarked.

"Same." Rojas commented.

"Same here." Fenix spoke, cursing inwardly as to how much he had panicked when that massive creature entered the fight. If he hadn't, Garcia might still be alive. He shook his, knowing that there was no way he could have reached Garcia in time. That creature had been just too close to stop it.

"Okay, from now on, short controlled burst and pick your targets carefully until we can get a resupply. Don't be surprised if you end having to do CQB." Fenix ordered, motioning the group forward with a gesture of the hand, to which the group moved out and continued down the hallway towards the Communications Room.

* * *

"So, now that we've had our daily encounter of assholes trying to kill us, anybody want to tell me what the fuck those things were?" Petkov griped.

"I'd say the owners of those ships we saw." Jones retorted, albeit sarcastically. He got a middle finger as a response.

"What I want to know is what the fuck that big-ass one's deal was. The one with the shield and that kept glowing blue? What the hell was that, magic?" Rojas questioned. "Don't know. Looked like it might of been some kinda commander or spec-ops or something. At least we have an idea about what we're dealing with." Fenix remarked as they entered the main area for the Communications Building's sub-level 2.

* * *

Before them was a large, expansive room with two levels that led into several smaller rooms, mostly maintenance sheds and generators to power the comm relays. Several of the lights in the room were either blown or flickering. Some half dozen bodies could be seen sprawled out in the area, though Fenix suspected there were likely more. Not that he wanted to know.

* * *

"Alright, so what all do we know about our guests?" Jones asked.

"Well. We know the fuckers have barriers, better than ours, but weaker armor minus the big one. Their firearms fire faster than ours, but don't seem to hit as hard." Fenix listed off.

"Hey, yeah he's right. I could have sworn I got hit at least a good couple dozen times. Broke my barrier, but seemed like they just bounced off my armor." Rojas remarked, before mentally noting something. " Though, I think a couple of those rounds did penetrate parts of my armor that isn't as thick."

"Those swords on the other hand, can cut through our armor like it's paper or some shit." Fenix continued.

"Is that what happened to Garcia?" Jones asked. "...Yeah." Fenix replied after several seconds of silence.

"Next time we see that big fucker, if we do, we need to try to take it out." Rojas growled, still seething at that creature for killing one of their squadmates.

"Tch, yeah good luck with that." Petkov remarked. "Anything else, besides that they're bigger and faster than us."

"Well, I think that the big one's the only one who can pull those little magic tricks, otherwise I think they all would have been doing it. That and they seem to have a thing for digging." Fenix finished. Rojas sighed, "Makes me wonder if we're, like, dealing with the Locust's galactic cousins or some shit."

Petkov laughed, "Yeah, all they need are a bunch of Wretches and a fucking Corpser or two and you wouldn't be able to tell 'em apart." Fenix grunted in annoyance, "Alright, enough. We're 5 levels beneath the main floor, where the Comm Room is. We need to get up there and re-establish communications with our Fleet and the rest of the Regiment. Otherwise, this fight's gonna be a hell of a lot tougher. Alright, spread out and look for the stairs."

* * *

They spread out across the room, looking for the stairs that would take them up. After a few moments, Jones found them and informed the others, who then all proceeded up the stairs, weapons trained up in case someone was waiting for them.

Making their way up to Main Level 3, what greeted them wasn't too pretty. Human and alien bodies lied about the room, several having died rather gruesomely. It appeared that a large number of Security Personnel had tried to barricade themselves down here and hold out. Judging from the numerous man sized holes in the wall, Fenix knowing all too well that the aliens had done that, it hadn't gone as planned. Needless to say, this hadn't been as much of a one-sided slaughter as the last one they saw. The support pillar in the center of the room was riddled with bullet and explosive damage.

"Damn... At least they took a few of the bastards with them." Rojas whispered as they walked pass the battlefield. While true it hadn't been a one-sided slaughter, it hadn't exactly been a fair fight either. For every dead alien, there must have been at least 3 dead humans lying about.

"You think the elevators might be working?" Jones asked as they walked past the levels set.

"Probably, but I wouldn't recommend using them." Petkov replied.

"Why?"

"It'd be the first place I'd set an ambush for anybody thinking of using them. Really good kill boxes if you know what I mean." Fenix replied.

"... Point taken."

"Stairs, over here." Rojas called out, pointing to the opposite side of the room to a stairwell, where a fallen security guard laid slumped over on the wall.

The Squad moved towards the stairway, when Jones suddenly spoke up, "Oh crap, tell me that's not what I think it is."

They all stopped and turned to where he was looking, a room at the wall adjacent to the one with the stairwell. The doorway frame was warped and bent, the doors themselves laying sprawled about in several pieces. In and around the doorway a dozen aliens laid sprawled out, some riddled with bullets or ripped open by a chainsaw. One was even decapitated. Looking inside the room, they saw what Jones was talking about. Inside the room, they found the body of an Onyx Guard, signature solid black GRIFFON-Armor and all, slumped over on the wall with an arm missing. The Guard's armor had several slash marks on it and the helmet was dented on the right.

"Damn, bastard went down fighting." Petkov muttered as he gave the body a nod in respect. Fenix glanced at the warped door frame, "I think our new friend was here." he sneered. Looking back at the alien corpses, he spoke, "So they're not unbeatable. They gave them a bloodier nose than we thought."

"Think any of the other Guards are still alive?" Rojas asked.

"I'd say the chances are better, after seeing this. If one Onyx Guard was able to take down a dozen of them, then there's a good chance that at least a couple of the others are alive. But we won't find out by staying here." Jones replied.

Fenix walked up to the corpse and knelt down to check and see if the Cog-Tags were there and, seeing that they were, grabbed them and placed them with the other Cog-Tags he had collected. "Right, no sense in staying here. Let's get topside and get Comms back up and working." He said as he stood up and looked back at the group.

* * *

Entering the stairwell, they saw where the security team had tried to block it off with various items and equipment. There was even a automated turret MG deployed that had been watching it, though judging by the massive gaping hole in the barricade and the now destroyed state of the turret, it hadn't done them much good. Moving through the breech, the Gears sweep their weapons all about on the staircase as they ascended, looking for anything that wasn't human.

As they reached Main Level 2, they saw this level's support pillar had been completely severed in the middle, the middle third of it lying in various chunks around it. Several of the floors' offices, mainly use to help maintain communications with the rest of USG Space, were blown apart and/or heavily damaged. But as they proceeded into the room, they also heard something else coming from above. A continuous assortment of gunfire and explosions coming from above.

Someone was still alive and fighting.

Nobody even had to look at the others for confirmation. "MOVE!" Fenix ordered as they sprinted across the room, only to stop as one of the far walls erupted outward, a massive gaping hole now being made by what looked like some kind of machine, gripping the edges of the hole, then glowing red hot and rotating in a circular motion as it made the hole wider. Then it retracted and disappeared into the hole, and a half dozen alien troopers clammered out of the hole, bellowing as the charged out and open fire.

"Contact!" Rojas shouted as they opened fire on the aliens as both sides bolted for cover, with Bravo taking cover amongst a set of the offices on the level. As the two sides exchanged fire, another hole was created on the second level to their right, with six more aliens coming through to enter the fight.

"Sonovabitch, more on the right!" Petkov roared as he laid down suppressive fire on the new hostiles above them, his Spitfire LMG thundering away at the aliens. He was able to bring down two of the alien troopers before they ducked into cover and returned fire, forcing him back into cover. Fenix glanced out of cover to fire off a burst at one of the aliens, but noticed something.

* * *

While some of the aliens were wearing the same kind of armor scheme as they had seen in the tunnel, he noticed that some of the aliens were wearing one of two different types of armor, both different from the one he's seen.

The armors both had the same color scheme as before, but one had thicker armor and what looked like an even bigger rifle in its right arm, with an elongated triple-barrel design. Fenix could only imagine it was some kind of mini-gun of sorts.

The other one wasn't as bulky and appeared thinner, but had four boxy bulges on the back of the armor. The weapons on their right arms looked like some kind of pistol, short and stubby in appearance. Some kind of support troop, maybe. Fenix wasn't sure, nor did he have time to ponder on it.

Raising up from his cover, Fenix fired several more burst from his Saber, gunning down one of the aliens and badly mauling another before being forced back into cover, bullets tearing into it. Turning over to Jones, he shouted, "Jones! On my mark, lob a couple grenades at the fuckers above us! As soon as he does, the rest of us toss a frag at the bastards to our front!" Priming a grenade in his hand, he looked back, "Ready?"

"Ready!"

"Now!"

Jones fired off two grenades in rapid succession, killing two of the aliens above them, wounding a third one, and sending another one flying off the second level towards them. The alien crashed in a heap on top of one of the office desks next to Rojas, who ran up to the alien and proceeded to curb-stomp it in the face before it could retaliate, killing it quickly.

Following this, Fenix. Petkov, and Rojas all threw a grenade at the alien troopers on the ground level. The sleeker looking alien flung up one of the boxy bulges that had been on its back, which suddenly reconfigured into a drone of sort, equipped with the same kind of weapon its deployer had and staying afloat by what Fenix could only describe as three orange-glowing pads on its underside.

The drone suddenly emitted an orange glow and 'caught' one of the grenades, before flinging it back at the Gears.

"Oh fuck!" was all Petkov could shout as dove out of the way of the incoming grenade, which exploded mere seconds after he did so. The other two grenades hit their targets and exploded in a gory display, killing three of the aliens that had previously been there, now nothing more than bloody chunks.

"Shit that Engineer's deploying more of those drones!" Rojas shouted as he fired on the first drone, dropping it after taking a sustained burst from his Saber. Sure enough, the now-dubbed 'Engineer' Alien tossed up the remainder of its drones, all of which proceeded to fire concentrated bursts on the pinned Gears.

* * *

The mini-gun toting alien rose from cover and added its own firepower into the fray, its weapon's three barrels spinning rapidly before unleashing a torrent of lead at the Gears. Despite their helmets muffling the sounds of battle to much more tolerable levels, the buzzing sound the weapon made was still fairly loud. Rojas, pulling out his S4 'Butcher' Shotgun, worked his way through cover, trying to flank around the side of the aliens on the ground.

Fenix rose out of cover and fired a burst at one of the drones, damaging it but failing to take it out before being forced back into cover by return fire.

Jones fired a burst from his Saber at the three aliens still on the second level, shattering the barriers and killing the wounded alien from before. The two remaining aliens retaliated and fired on him, shattering his barrier and grazing his right shoulder with a half dozen rounds before he succeeded in returning to cover, grunted in pain at his injured shoulder.

Growling, Fenix rose once more, firing a burst at the aliens above them while priming a grenade. As the aliens went back into cover, Fenix chucked the grenade. Almost immediately, one of the drones moved to intercepted, but was gunned down by Rojas, whose 8-Gauge Shotgun made quick work of the drone. The other drone moved to intercept as well, firing burst from its gun as it went, but like its fellow drone, it too was gunned down by Rojas.

As the grenade exploded, the two aliens on the second level jumped, orange glowing swords ignited, straight at the Gears. As they landed and charged at the Gears, Fenix revved up his chainsaw and prepared to meet them head-on.

* * *

 **Meanwhile...  
** **Service Tunnel Garage between Docking Bay and Communications Building**

The garage door burst open, its pieces sent flying about in the garage room. Stepping into the room, the massive Paladin Knight snorted as he walked through the door, followed by a low growl as he observed the room, his Castellani spreading out through the room, looking for any signs of the 'Hoo-muns' that had eluded them before.

Flexing his right hand, which occasionally glowed blue, he mentally cursed at allowing his foes to escape. This door wouldn't have taken so long if he hadn't been forced to halt and turn back around. Another group of hoo-muns, numbering 3 times as many as the group that had eluded him, had come down into the tunnel, no doubt investigating the sounds of battle that had taken place earlier.

What followed was what any self-respecting Knight would have described as a glorious battle, with 7 of the hoo-muns being slain by his own hands, their Cog-Tags now trophies strapped to his shield, along with 6 others. But while they had all died, he had taken serious casualties as well, with 43 of their number falling to them. Out of his own Command Cohort of 500 Velites, 250 Hastatus, and 250 Immunes alone, they has lost some 127 to the Hoo-muns over the past 11 hours of fighting, and he wasn't pleased by this. Not to mention the other 185 lost by the other Cohort that was here.

These hoo-muns were different from the ones they had fought on the stations upon their arrival. They were better trained, more disciplined, and definitely more ferocious in battle, save for maybe what the Velites were calling the 'Black-Demons'. Begrudgingly, he was beginning to grow some respect for these hoo-muns' fighting prowess, though he would never dare admit it.

 _"My Liege."_ A Velite Prior spoke, kneeling and bowing as he spoke, his left fist beside his head. The customary salute in their culture.

 _"Speak."_ Raising his head, the Velite Prior spoke, _"We have confirmed that the hoo-muns that had eluded us earlier are attempting to reach the Black-Demons that have bunkered down in the communications room."_

The Knight snorted. He had already figured that was where they were going. That's why he had another Vexillum go reinforce the ones already there, to ensure their communications stayed offline, or their jammer being destroyed. They could not afford to have the hoo-muns communicating with one another before their work was finished here.

 _"What of the other footholds the hoo-muns have established?"_

 _"We have kept them from making any considerable gains, often times at significant cost to their forces."_

He grunted in approval, _"Good, we shall assemble 4 Comitatus to commence a counterattack on their two strongest positions, immediately. Force them from the station. We cannot afford to fumble about and take our time."_

 _"It will be done, my Liege."_ The Prior bowed, _"What of the hoo-muns in the Communications Building?"_

The Knight snarled in annoyance, more so on the hoo-muns continued existence than of the Prior's rather pointless question. It was obvious what they would do, _"Gather up your Castellani. We will deal with them ourselves."_

* * *

 **And that's it for this Chapter! Sorry it took so long, and I know you guys get tired of hearing excuses, but the reasons were.**

 **A. I was away for 2 weeks for NG training.**

 **B. I've honestly lost a lot of motivation to write lately, and I've really been trying to find ways to get it back. No luck so far. :(**

 **But anyway, I'm back now, and I'm going right back to work on my stories.**

 **Also, before I forget, I've decided that I'm going to add a third universe to this wonderful little story, but I'm not gonna tell you what it is. You'll just have to find out at a later date.**

 **Also, the next chapter will be a Codex for everything so far; Ships, weapons, etc.**

 **As always, I hope you enjoyed, leave a review to let me know what you thought and as always, constructive criticism is always welcome.**

 **See you next time.**

 **-Azores**


	5. Codex Part 1

_USG Codex_

 _USG Naval Ships (Part 1)_

 ** _Jacinto-Class Dreadnought (BB) Gen-1_**

 _Length: 2.05 km  
Height: 545 m  
Width: 380 m_

 _Entered Service: 2255  
Number Built: 6 (As of 2275)_

 _Armor:  
3.25 meters of Ceranium  
Kinetic Barriers_

 _Armament:  
2x Hammer of Dawn DEW (Direct Energy Weapon)  
2x G463 Coilgun (25 tons)  
30x Broadside Mass Accelerators (105mm; 15 to either side)  
40x Point Defense AAA Guns  
50x Missile Pods (25 missiles each)_

 _Engine:  
2x Cold Fusion Reactor  
3x Thrusters  
1x Hyperspace Drive (Capable of 6.2 LYD)_

 _Crew: 400  
Max Capacity: 12,000 Passengers  
100 Ground Vehicles  
40 Gunships  
18 Fighters_

* * *

 ** _Sargasso-Class Cruiser (CR) Gen-2_**

 _Entered Service: 2249_

 _Total Number Built: 62 (As of 2275)_

 _Length: 978 meters  
Height: 300 meters  
Width: 260 meters_

 _Armor:  
2 meters of Ceranium  
Kinetic Barriers_

 _Armament:  
1x Hammer of Dawn DEW  
2x G462 Coilgun (15 tons)  
24x Broadside Mass Accelerators (105mm; 12 to either side.)  
32x Point Defense AAA Guns  
36x Missile Pods (25 Missiles Each)_

 _Engines:  
2x Cold-Fusion Reactors  
3x Thruster Units  
1 Hyperspace Drive (Capable of 6.2 LYD)_

 _Crew: 300  
Max Capacity:  
6,000 Passengers  
48 Ground Vehicles  
30 Gunships  
12 Fighters_

* * *

 ** _Forward unto Dawn-Class Destroyer (DD) Gen-1_**

 _Entered Service: 2250_

 _Total Number Built: 96 (As of 2275)_

 _Length: 625 meters  
Height: 200 meters  
Width: 150 meters_

 _Armor:  
1.4 meters of Ceranium  
Kinetic Barriers_

 _Armament:  
2x G461 Coilgun (10 tons)  
18x Broadside Mass Accelerators (105mm; 9 to either side.)  
28x Point Defense AAA Guns  
30x Missile Pods (25 Missiles Each)_

 _Engines:  
1x Cold-Fusion Reactors  
3x Thruster Units  
1 Hyperspace Drive (Capable of 6.2 LYD)_

 _Crew: 200  
Max Capacity: 3,000 Passengers  
30 Ground Vehicles  
20 Gunships  
8 Fighters_

* * *

 ** _Thanos-Class Heavy Frigate (FR) Gen-2_**

 _Entered Service: 2240_

 _Total Number Built: 182 (As of 2275)_

 _Length: 482 meters  
Height: 180 meters  
Width: 114 meters_

 _Armor:  
0.8 meters of Ceranium  
Kinetic Barriers_

 _Armament:  
3x G460 Coilgun (5 tons)  
16x Broadside Mass Accelerators (105mm; 8 to either side.)  
20x Point Defense AAA Guns  
20x Missile Pods (25 Missiles Each)_

 _Engines:  
1x Cold-Fusion Reactors  
4x Thruster Units  
1 Hyperspace Drive (Capable of 6.2 LYD)_

 _Crew: 120  
Max Capacity: 1,500 Passengers  
20 Ground Vehicles  
20 Gunships  
6 Fighters_

* * *

 ** _Deliverance-Class Light Frigate (FL) Gen-2_**

 _Entered Service: 2240_

 _Total Number Built: 150 (As of 2275)_

 _Length: 482 meters  
Height: 180 meters  
Width: 114 meters_

 _Armor:  
0.5 meters of Ceranium  
Kinetic Barriers_

 _Armament:  
20x Broadside Mass Accelerators (105mm; 10 to either side.)  
28x Point Defense AAA Guns  
24x Missile Pods (25 Missiles Each)_

 _Engines:  
1x Cold-Fusion Reactors  
4x Thruster Units  
1 Hyperspace Drive (Capable of 6.2 LYD)_

 _Crew: 120  
Max Capacity: 1,500 Passengers  
20 Ground Vehicles  
20 Gunships  
6 Fighters_

* * *

 ** _Type 2-Class Corvette (K) Gen-2_**

 _Entered Service: 2220_

 _Total Number Built: 320 (As of 2275)_

 _Length: 250 meters  
Height: 100 meters  
Width: 84 meters_

 _Armor:  
0.3 meters of Ceranium  
Kinetic Barriers_

 _Armament:  
16x Broadside Mass Accelerators (105mm; 8 to either side.)  
28x Point Defense AAA Guns  
30x Missile Pods (25 Missiles Each)_

 _Engines:  
1x Cold-Fusion Reactors  
3x Thruster Units  
1 Hyperspace Drive (Capable of 6.2 LYD)_

 _Crew: 80  
Max Capacity: 500 Passengers  
10 Ground Vehicles  
6 Gunships  
3 Fighters_

* * *

 ** _Groslin-Class Repair Ship/Hospital Ship (RS) Gen-1_**

 _Entered Service: 2242_

 _Total Number Built: 12 (As of 2275)_

 _Length: 1.5 km  
Height: 395 meters  
Width: 350 meters_

 _Armor:  
2 meters of Ceranium  
Kinetic Barriers_

 _Armament:  
80x Point Defense AAA Guns  
10x Missile Pods (25 Missiles Each; AA Variant)_

 _Engines:  
2x Cold-Fusion Reactors  
5x Thruster Units  
1 Hyperspace Drive (Capable of 6.2 LYD)_

 _Crew: 150  
Max Capacity: 9,000 Passengers  
12 Fighters_

* * *

 ** _Endurance-Class Transport Ship (TS) Gen-3_**

 _Entered Service: 2213_

 _Total Number Built: 80 (As of 2275)_

 _Length: 1 km  
Height: 325 meters  
Width: 412 meters_

 _Armor:  
2.2 meters of Ceranium  
Kinetic Barriers_

 _Armament:  
40x Broadside Mass Accelerators (105mm; 20 to either side.)  
34x Point Defense AAA Guns  
30x Missile Pods (25 Missiles Each)_

 _Engines:  
2x Cold-Fusion Reactors  
3x Thruster Units  
1 Hyperspace Drive (Capable of 6.2 LYD)_

 _Crew: 185  
Max Capacity: 6,000 Passengers  
80 Ground Vehicles  
30 Gunships  
18 Fighters_

* * *

 _USG Codex  
_

 _Weaponry and Equipment (Part 1)_

* * *

 **-L426 Hydra Combat Armor-**

While the Hydra Combat Suit wasn't entirely easy to assemble, its component were interchangeable, making it easy to replace compromised sections of the armor. And this didn't change the fact that Gears loved it for it's survivability and reliability. with 3.2 inches of Ceranium armor plating protecting the wearer, along with a Kinetic Barrier, the Hydra suit was capable of taking a considerable amount of punishment, while allowing the user to dish it right back out. And like all combat suit, it grants the user extra strength and power in their movements, allowing them to run faster, go farther, and hit harder. As the standard issue armor of the Gears for the better part of 40 years, the armor system has gone through numerous changes and upgrades over the decades. There was, however, one problem with the suit.

The Kinetic Barriers of the Hydra Armor were simply too underdeveloped to be of any effective use. While they can deflect bullets, they were only good for about 6-7 assault rifle shots before they broke, meaning they were only good for buying you a couple seconds to get to cover and not much else. The only plus side was that they recharged fairly quickly, as long as you weren't taking damage.

 **(In order to give you an idea as to what it looks like, look up the Decimator-Mjolnir Armor on Halopedia. Merely using as a reference to give you an idea as to what it looks like.)**

* * *

 **-L427 Griffon Combat Armor-**

Like its fellow armor system the L426, the L427 isn't easy to assemble together, but is interchangeable and extremely resilient. The standard issue armor of the elite Onyx Guards, the Griffon Suit is equipped with 4.5 inches of Ceranium armor protecting the user, along with a slightly more powerful, but much more expensive Kinetic Barrier. And like all combat suit, it grants the user extra strength and power in their movements, allowing them to run faster, go farther, and hit harder.

Despite its cost, the Griffon armor is praised by its users as being extremely reliable and capable of taking considerable punishment before breaking down. But, like the L426, it suffers from many of the same issues. The Kinetic Barriers are simply too underdeveloped to be of effective use, capable of taking roughly 10-12 assault rifle shots before breaking.

 **(In order to give you an idea as to what it looks like, look up the Technician-Mjolnir Armor on Halopedia. Merely using as a reference to give you an idea as to what it looks like.)**

* * *

 **-P34 Strato-Falcon Gunship/Transport-**

The P34 Strato-Falcon is the Coalition Armed Forces' standard transport/gunship. At 18 meters long, 6 meters in height, and weighing 40 tons, they're much larger than their predecessors. With a 7 meter width they were capable of transporting 24 Soldiers and/or carrying 20 tons of equipment. Their design were smooth and angular, with a pair of miniature wings on the side equipped with thrusters to improve maneuverability, while the two main thrusters were at the back of the craft.

Each Falcon was equipped with two 40mm Chain-guns in the nose, and could internally store 12 missiles, giving them considerable firepower, though they could be modified to have other weapons installed.

The Strato-Falcon has been in service with the CAF since 2234, praised for its ruggedness and reliability. And they have no plans to replace it anytime soon.

* * *

 **-G32A4 Saber Assault Rifle-**

The G32A4 'Saber' was the latest model of the G32 Assault Rifle model (Which entered service in 2238) to enter service, with the A5 variant slated to enter production in 2286. Hailing from a legacy of reliable and powerful rifles, which trace all the way back to the legendary Lancer Mk.1 and Mk.2, the Saber features a Bullpop design, with its 50 round magazine located in the back of the rifle. Firing the trusted and reliable 8.5x52mm COG round at a rate of 800 rpm, a round in which that has been in service with the Gears since before the Pendelum Wars, the Saber has a notorious reputation for its killing power and accuracy. Another feature that has added to its notoriety, is the infamous chainsaw utility tool, though most Gears like to use it as a bayonet of sorts. It can be replaced, however, for a 40mm grenade launcher or even a 'Keymaster' 8-gauge shotgun. The chainsaw's weight counteracts the Saber's rear-heavy weight, resulting in a low-recoil, high-accuracy weapon capable of reaching targets at distance, even on fully automatic.

The Saber is the standard issue Assault Rifle of the USG, and there are no plans to replace it anytime soon.

* * *

 **-S4 Butcher Combat Shotgun-**

Developed and adopted by the USG in 2245, the S4 is a pump action shotgun that carries 6 8-gauge, magazine loaded shells. Like many of its predecessors, it lacks a butt stock in order for a more compact design for CQB, an area that it excels at. But like many of its predecessors, like the legendary Gnasher, it lacks the range of other firearms, such as the G32 or even the G12.

It recommended that this weapons be used for close quarters only.

* * *

 **-S85A2 Spitfire LMG-**

Developed in 2248 and adopted in 2251, the S85 is a lightweight Squad Automatic Weapon designed to provide squads with extra firepower. Chambered for the same 8.5x52mm COG round as the G32, the Spitfire fires these round from a 150 belt-fed or box magazine at a rate of up to 1000 rpm. Despite the high rate of fire, it is surprisingly accurate at ranges up to 600 meters without a scope, which a 2x Scope and Holographic Sight come standard issue for the weapon, along with a foregrip bipod.

* * *

 **-G12 Fox Heavy Pistol-**

The standard issue sidearm as of its adoption in 2210, the G12 fires the same Kal .50 round that many of its predecessors did in a 10 round magazine. Despite being considered a decent pistol, it is noted that the Fox should only be used as a last resort due to its low stopping power.

* * *

 _Kodox Codex (Citadel Archives)_

 _Military Terminology (Part 1)_

* * *

 **-Paladin Knight-**

Large, imposing, and very powerful, Paladin Knights serve as the elite of the Kodox Military, an order even older than the Kodox Imperium, which stands at over 400 years old. They're equipped with an enormous shield on their left hand, capable of deflecting bullets and even rockets, and an omni-sword on their right, along with a built in dual T-3 'Hurricane' Machine Pistols in their right arm and a shoulder mounted retractable Rocket Launcher above their left shoulder. Their armor and kinetic barriers are considered first-rate and extremely durable.

Standing on average at roughly 9-9'6" tall and weighing on average 800 pounds, they are significantly larger than their fellow Kodox. Though the reason why is unknown, it is speculated that Element-Zero may have something to do with it, due to the Knights being the only Biotics recorded amongst the Kodox. That being said, the Knights are considered some of the most powerful biotics in the known galaxy, rivaling the power and strength of even Asari Matriarchs or Krogan Battlemasters. And like the Krogan, their ferocity in battle knows no bounds, having been documented numerous times tearing through enemy lines with surprising quickness. Because of their elite status within the Kodox Military, they are given significantly far better training and tutoring than their smaller relatives, which leads to them often being in charge of large military formations, such as **Cohorts** (rarely; mainly newly anointed Knights), **Legios** , **Divisius** , and even entire **Copiaes** or **Acies**.

Knights have also been known to lead ships into battle, though for some reason they typically prefer to fight on the ground. Regardless, the Paladin Knights are a force to surely be reckoned with within the Attican Traverse.

* * *

 **-Velites-**

The standard infantry of the Kodox Military, the Kodox Velites stand roughly 8' tall and weigh in at roughly 400-500 pounds. Each Velite is equipped with the standard infantry armament for most civilizations. An Assault Rifle, the T-1 'Hammerstorm' Rifle, several grenades, a built in omni-sword in their left hand, light infantry combat armor and kinetic barriers.

Velite are the backbone of the Kodox ground forces, mainly using mass assault tactics to achieve their objectives. Like the Krogan, they're known for their ferocity and dedication in combat, even in the face of insurmountable odds. Despite these rather positive combat traits, they're offset by the Velites' rather minimal training and limited equipment, due to the Imperium favoring Mass Assault tactics.

However, if a Velite shows promise in terms of leadership and bravery, he could be further trained and promoted to a **Velite Alaris** , which command a **Conturbenium;** then to a **Velite Prior** , which command a **Castellani;** then to a **Velite Cacula,** which command a **Comitatus;** to finally a **Velite Dux,** who can command a **Cohort,** a **Legios,** or a **Copiae**.

* * *

 **-Hastatus-**

Hastatus are the heavy infantry variant of the Velites, equipped with heavier medium infantry armor and kinetic barriers, and armed with a T-2 'Buzzsaw' Chain-gun or a T-4 Light Mortar System. They serve to support the Velites as they attack or defend a position. In light of their roles, they're often given better training as opposed to the Velites, in order to teach them about their new weapons and armor.

* * *

 **-Immunes-**

The Engineer variant of the Velites, the Immunes serve as a support role for the Kodox Military, supporting the Velites and Hastatus with drones and technical support. They're equipped with ultra light infantry armor and kinetic barriers and a T-3 'Hurricane' Machine Pistol. They also come equipped with 4 tactical drones, each equipped with a T-3 Machine Pistol and various gadgets, to assist in a variety of ways.

Like the Hastatus, they're given slightly better training over the Velite in order to gain a better understanding of their equipment. If one shows enough skill and intellect, they could be trained and turned into a **Immunes Medicus,** who act as field medics for the Kodox Military, though they are rarely seen on the front lines if ever.

* * *

 **-Immunes Medicus-**

The Medic variant of the Velites, they are equipped with the same gear and kit as an Immunes, plus various medical kits and devices. Unlike the Immunes, they are not considered frontline units, and are rarely seen on the frontlines if ever.

* * *

Ground Unit Composition of the Kodox

 **Conturbenium-** A squad-size element ranging from 6 to 10 soldiers depending on the task or unit. (Lead by a **Velite Alaris** )

 **Castellani-** A Platoon-size element ranging from 20-30 soldiers. (Lead by a **Velite Prior** )

 **Comitatus-** A Company-size element ranging from 80-120 soldiers. (Lead by a **Velite Cacula** )

 **Cohort-** A Battalion to Regiment-size element ranging from 600-1,200 soldiers. (Lead by a **Velite Dux III** or **Paladin Knight** )

 **Legios-** A Brigade-size element ranging from 3,000-5,000 soldiers. (Lead by a **Velite Dux II** or **Paladin Knight** )

 **Copiae-** A Division-size element ranging from 10,000-15,000 soldiers. (Lead by a **Velite Dux I** or **Paladin Knight** )

 **Acies-** An Army Corps-size element ranging from 40,000-120,000 soldiers. (Lead by a **Paladin Knight Prior** )

* * *

 **And there's our first Codex for our story! Hope you enjoyed. As some might have noticed, I decided to tap into the old Latin Language for coming up with names for the Kodox's units and army formations. As always, feel free to pm me about any questions, leave a review to let me know how I did, and constructive criticism is always welcomed.**

 **See you next time,**

 **-Azores**


	6. ACT 1 PART 4

**I don't Gears of War or Mass Effect.**

 **Bold-My Own Words**

 ** _Bold & Italic-Locations, Time & Calendar_**

Normal-Narrative

"Normal"-Person Speaking

'Normal'-Thoughts

 _"Italic"-Foreign_ _Language_

 _'Italic'-Radio Chatter_

 _/Italic\\-AI/Computer typing_

* * *

 **Theme Song for Chapter: 'MKUltra'** **From the ReallySlowMotion Music**

* * *

 **14th of Bloom, 2275 (415 AE)  
1142 Hours  
Sigma Argolis System  
** **HK416  
** **Sigma Argolis Observation Outpost**

* * *

 **Act 1  
** **Part 4**

 **"Paladin Knight"**

* * *

 _ **Communications Building; Main Level 2**_

The two aliens charged forward, lunging at Fenix with glowing orange blades as they each bellowed a warcry. Fenix charged forward and slammed into the first one as it swung its blade, sending it backwards crashing onto a console. The other alien came from behind and surged forward, trying to impale the Gear on its blade. Fenix with no time to react, did the only thing he could and brought his chainsaw up to block it. To his surprise, as well as the alien's, the chainsaw blocked the thrust, the engine revving madly as the two battled for dominance.

With a roar, Fenix ducked down, causing the alien to topple, then slammed his shoulder into its chest as it was over him, lifting it up and flipping the growling creature over him, slamming it into the floor. The alien bellowed out as it raised an arm to try and defend itself, but was cut down by Fenix who disemboweled it with his chainsaw, roaring as he did. Behind him, the other alien had recovered and bellowed in rage at the death of its comrade, but was gunned down at point blank by Fenix before it could retaliate.

Jones came up beside him and launched a grenade, which sailed into the second level and blasted the mini-gunner in gory bits, silencing its weapon. He heard sickening groan and tearing of metal, looking to his right just in time to see another digger machine bursting through the metal wall, opening up to release some 12 more aliens soldiers into the battle.

"Goddammit, I'm really starting to hate when they do that!" Rojas shouted as he fired on a couple of the aliens, who responded in kind with their own volley of fire, forcing him back into cover. A drone soon joined in, firing its weapon from above before being gun down by Jones. The creatures, despite being larger than the average man, were surprisingly nimble, moving from cover to cover and firing as they moved, often times not giving a lot of time to shoot them before they were back in cover.

Petkov cackled as he fired away, gunning down a trio of the aliens before ducking back to cover, "Is that it?! That all you got, you fucking skitters?!"

"Skitters?" Fenix asked, pulling out his shotgun and blind firing a couple shots, "What the hell kinda name is that?"

"What? You got a problem with it?" Petkov asked, chucking a grenade at another group of the 'skitters' firing on him from the other side of some office cubes.

Fenix glanced around the corner of the office cube he was crouched behind, eyeing a couple aliens ahead of him that had pinned down Rojas on the opposite side of the cubicles. Snarling, he spoke, "As a matter of fact..." he charged forward, "I think it's really fucking FITTING!" slamming into one of the aliens and jamming the barrel of his shotgun up into its mouth before pulling the trigger, a geyser of orange blood and gore spewing up as the weapon fired. The other alien, caught off guard, squawked and swung its weapon around, firing wildly as it did so. Fenix grabbed the alien corpse and raised it in front of him, protecting him from the barrage of bullets being fired at him from point blank. He suddenly lurched back as an orange blade pierced through the corpse, nearly stabbing into his skull. Falling back onto the ground, he fired a couple shots from his shotgun, one blasting into the corpse, the second shot slamming into the still living alien and breaking its shield. A follow up shot slammed into it waist, throwing it to the ground. The alien, coughing up blood, attempted to rise up on wobbly hands and knees.

Fenix quickly got up and, noticing the alien was still alive, walked over and curb stomped the alien's head, crushing it under his boot.

"Push up and get through the fuckers! MOVE!" Fenix ordered as he swapped to his Saber and fired on a couple aliens above him. But they quickly ducked back into cover. They may not have thick armor, but the bastards are quick learners. They immediately blind tossed a couple grenades near his position to flush him out, the two explosions kicking up furniture, papers and all kinds of debris around him.

"Alright. Now I'm getting pissed." Fenix growled lowly, blind firing a burst from his Saber before roadie running to another set of office spaces, hyper velocity alien bullets kicking up debris around him as he did so. As he got ready to fire once more, he heard Rojas shouting, "Hey, are they retreating?"

Glancing out of cover, he looked and sure enough, the aliens on the ground level were starting to pull back, towards the stairwell in the back leading further up, while the trio of aliens above were laying down whatever cover fire they could.

"Ah shit, they are. They're trying to regroup with their friends upstairs!" Fenix shouted to the others, to which Petkov began laying down a barrage of MG fire on the aliens above while Rojas and Jones tried to pick off the aliens on the ground level before they could escape. Fenix chucked the last of his grenades at a group of the skitters making a break for the door. The grenade detonated and manage to catch 2 in the blast, but the other 2 escaped, disappearing into the darkened stairwell.

* * *

Bravo Squad pushed up and pursued the aliens as they retreated, killing a couple more, but unable to prevent the majority of the skitters from escaping. They were just so damn fast compared to a human. Nevertheless, Bravo couldn't stop here. They could still hear gunfire raging from above.

"Come on! Whoever is still alive up there is gonna need our help!" Rojas spoke, racing forward to the stairwell and stopping to take cover beside the entrance.

"Oh right, 'cause they definitely wouldn't have a booby trap or ambush waiting for us." Petkov gripped, as the rest of the squad reached the entrance.

"He's got a point. They kinda hightailed it a little too quickly for my taste. I smell a trap." Jones agreed.

"It's not like we have much choice." Fenix said, walking past the three, "Come on. I'll take point. Petkov, hang back in the rear and cover our asses."

The squad bolted up the stairs, running up to the first level where the fighting was happening. Sure enough, as they reached the floor, they were greeted with gunfire from a couple aliens lying in wait for them, dozens of rounds pelting the stairwell walls as the squad returned fire. "Push up! Push up!" Fenix ordered as he gunned down one of the aliens while the second one retreated. Storming up the stairs, Fenix ran up to the door and glanced out, only to lurch back as several skitter bullets slammed into where his head had been.

"Does he have friends or is he alone?" asked Rojas, as the rest of the squad stacked up behind Fenix.

"Couldn't see. Bastard's playing it smart." Fenix said, just as he heard a clattering sound. Looking to the source, he and the squad saw a skitter grenade beeping on the ground. Petkov could barely let out a curse as the squad ran back down the stairway, getting halfway down the first flight before the device detonated. Fenix was lifted off of his feet and slammed into the wall, crumpling to the floor in a dazed heap. The others were thrown as well, Rojas and Petkov both being thrown even further down the stairwell than he was.

Rising to his knees, Fenix heard something coming down the stairs, and turned just in time to see the skitter coming down the stairs to finish them off. Its glowing sword illuminated the stairwell in an orange light as it growled at him in an alien tongue. Fenix pulled out his shotgun and fired a shot, but the distance allowed the alien's barriers to absorb the shot. The skitter growled and lunged forward, slamming its blade down to behead him. Fenix rolled to the side, barely avoiding it as it sliced into the metal floor, and slammed the butt of his shotgun into its snout. The alien staggered back, but quickly recovered as it stomped its foot down on Fenix's shotgun, pinning it along with his hand, and struck him twice across the head with its own rifle. It raised the blade menacingly overhead, ready to finally kill its opponent.

A Saber suddenly came to life beside the two, as Jones had recovered and fired at the towering alien, joined in quickly by Rojas and Petkov from down below. The combined firepower of two assault rifles and one LMG proved too much for the alien's barriers, as they broke under the onslaught. The alien was torn to bloody ribbons by the barrage of firepower, collapsing in a gory mess on the stairwell.

"You good, Fenix?" Jones asked, to which Fenix was quick to nod as he got up. Helping up Jones, the two collected Rojas and Petkov, then returned up to the top of the stairwell. Peeking out, the door, Jones looked back and nodded, confirming it was clear. The squad burst out of the stairway and out into the hall, running down the corridor towards the sound of gunfire. They rounded a corner and the gunfire got significantly louder.

* * *

"We're nearly there. Let's just hope someone's still left alive for us to save." Rojas spoke, just before a trio of skitters burst from out the room, firing into it as they pulled out. The squad pushed up and opened fire, gunning down two before they could react, but several more alien troopers came out of the doorway, firing on Bravo Squad as they took whatever cover was available in the hallway and fired back. But the aliens, despite their numerical superiority, seemed to be distracted. Some of them were firing at them, while others were firing back through the door, at likely whoever of the station's crew was still alive. Regardless, they would take advantage of their distraction.

Bravo Squad primed several grenades. "When these go off, we push forward and blast our way through any still alive. Our fellow soldiers and this station's survivors are counting on us to restore communications." They readied to throw, "On my mark!"

* * *

 _ **Communications Building; Main Level**_ _**\- Server Room**_

"God fucking dammit!" DB's synthetic voice growled, as all the progress he made on restoring communications just got stopped and reset, the server's computer screen going haywire and resetting all his progress. Again. For the 8th damn time now. The firewalls would adapt and modify themselves as he attempted to bypass them or erase them. He could give all kinds of curses and insults for the aliens, but he can't deny that their communications and cyber security were top notch, and far superior to humanity's own. They had to be if they were giving the best damn android in the entire USG such a damn headache. Whatever virus or device they had installed into their comms was blocking communications across the entire base, leaving everyone isolated from one another. That is, if there was anyone left alive aside from their small little band of misfits. 2 Onyx Guards, 1 Android, and a dozen- wait, no. Make that 11. Steve just died. Right, 11 security guards. Not much of a force when you're facing hundreds of alien assholes trying to kill you and take over the station.

And the only one with the slightest hope of fixing this damn mess was him. As usual. Because like most other times everyone else was usually too dumb or too lazy to do it themselves, leaving him to pick up the slack. Go figure. Sometimes, being a super genius sucked way too many balls.

"DB, what's the problem now, dammit?!" His pain in the ass of a squad leader, Staff Sergeant Carmine, called out from the right as she gunned down another alien. "The same fucking problem it's been for the past 10 minutes! I'm dealing with a piece of shit alien virus program that keeps adapting to my attacks on it. Fair warning in advance, I may end up having to shut down the system manually and just reboot it, cause I'm running out of idea at this point." DB replied, tilting his head slightly to the right to avoid a burst of rifle fire. Somewhere to his right, he heard a trio of security guards firing at a couple skitters with their shotguns.

An couple explosions rocked Carmine's position, while an alien trooper fired upon DB's back. The rounds bounced off the android's armored metal frame, and DB in turn calmly turned and pulled out his pistol, firing in quick succession at the offending attacker and forcing the skitter back into cover.

"Asshole!" DB shouted at the alien, before going back to work on the computer. A series of explosions rocked a hallway outside the door to his left, sending alien body parts everywhere as gunfire erupted from the hallway. Soon enough, a four man squad came charging up and bursting through the door, engaging any aliens they saw as they rushed into the room. One of the soldiers charged forward and slammed into one of the aliens, knocking the creature down before planting a shotgun round point blank into its head.

The group of soldiers ran over to where DB was and took cover around the communication server. "Who's in charge of your unit?!" One of them asked. Not even bothering to look at them, DB pointed over to where Carmine was while he continued to work on the computer. Okay, time to unplug this damn thing and just reboot it. If it would even let him do that. Judging by how well his luck had been lately... yeah, probably not if he had to wager.

"Dammit."

* * *

Fenix ran over to where the Onyx Guard was taking cover, a stack of crates placed in front of another doorway swarming with skitters on the other side trying to force their way in. Along with her, 3 security guards were trying to keep the aliens from entering. Almost everyone in the room seemed to have some kind of injury or wound. And the security guards only had shotguns and pistols to defend themselves, as opposed to the Onyx Guard. This wasn't a battle that favored them. But they didn't have much of a choice right now.

"Is this all that's left?" Fenix asked.

"Identify." Carmine ordered.

"Corporal Fenix. Bravo Squad. 8th Battalion, 20th Rangers Regiment. Who are you?"

The Guard didn't get to answered, as a trio of skitters leaped over their cover and pounced on them, blades ignited. Fenix was slammed to the ground by one, but quickly blasted it off him with his shotgun, and turned to see the Onyx Guard handling the other two. She kicked one's knee out from under it and then slammed her chainsaw into its gut, disemboweling it as the alien gave a blood curdling skriek of agony, falling backwards away from the horrendous weapon. The other one swung its blade at her, but the Guard ducked and shoulder slammed the alien back before firing into it, putting it down in bloody display. She turned her attention to the first alien, who was on its knees trying to put its guts back into its stomach while it wailed for help. The Guard walked over and grabbed its head, then gave a fierce punch to the back of its neck, which resulted in a loud crack sound as it neck was broken, then the alien went limp and dropped to the ground as she released it, its neck slightly bent back.

"Damn." Fenix muttered.

"Where's your CO?" She asked, as if nothing had happened.

"Probably back at the landing pads, unless they're fighting. It's just us that was sent here, and I've already lost my sergeant and another squadmate to these bastards." Fenix answered.

"Any idea when we'll get help? We can't hold this spot." A security guard asked.

Fenix shook his head, "No clue. We haven't been in contact since we left the landing pads."

"Dammit." Carmine cursed. Fenix could tell just by looking at them that they were worn out and exhausted. They wanted to get the hell out. And from what he's seen, he couldn't blame them.

"Hey! Xenos are pulling out!" The other Onyx Guard called out, and sure enough, they could see the skitters were slowly retreating, still firing at the humans, but retreating nonetheless. Almost as quickly as they appeared, the floor was silent, save for the heavy breathing of the human soldiers in the room. They were all exhausted.

"Think they've had enough?" Petkov asked.

"No way." Carmine muttered, "Those fuckers had to of known we were on our last legs here. Why the hell would they pull back when they nearly won?"

A deep thudding could suddenly be heard from outside, in the halls. Its echo was deep and almost thunderous. Something growled as the steps became louder. Fenix looked over to Carmine, knowing full well what it was that was coming to them.

"Their leader's coming."

As soon, as he said that, the footfall stopped, with only the low growls and rumbles of the monstrous creature being heard echoing through the room. "Oh, crap. Don't tell that's the big one." Rojas groaned. DB looked at him, still typing away on the computer, and asked, "You talking about the Paladin Knight? Cause I'm pretty sure it's him."

Before they could even ask what a Paladin Knight was, one of the doors were blasted apart as an enormous alien, the very same one that Bravo had faced early, burst into the room with a thunderous roar. Blue energy seemed to radiate off it as it lunged at Carmine's fellow Guardsmen. The Onyx Guard, to his credit, manage to start back stepping and fire off his Saber, but was quickly set upon by the Knight. The Knight, in one solid motion, sliced off the Guard's leg and lifted him off the ground with the motion, leaving him airborne. But only for a second, as the Knight quickly slammed the bladed end of its shield right into the man's gut, slamming him into the ground and caving in both his armor, and his chest cavity. The man hadn't even managed to scream out before his was dead.

"WINSTON!" Carmine called out, firing on the monstrous creature as Fenix ordered, "Take that son of a bitch down!"

Every human soldier in the room opened fire on the Knight, who growled out as bullets ricocheted off its armor. It raised its shield to block some of the shots being fired at it and returned fire with its wrist mounted machine pistols, dozens of bullets spamming out in the span of a few seconds at a group of Security Guards, who quickly dove into cover. The alien growled lowly, then suddenly a blue haze started to simmer around it.

Eyes widening, Fenix and every member of Bravo Squad started shouting for everyone to disperse and take cover, but the Knight's hand, a glowing blue and black orb simmering in it, was thrusted forward at the guards taking cover. The blue/blackish orb shot out, and slammed into the cover the guards were taking cover behind. The orb wasn't finished, though. To Fenix and everyone else's amazement and confusion, the orb suddenly seemed to collapse in on itself, leaving nothing but a blackish maw surrounded by a blue haze. The guards taking cover behind it were lifted into the air, panicking and flaying their limbs as they and objects or weapons around them floated in the air.

The Knight snarled and quickly fired at burst from its machine pistols, killing the three soldiers as the orb dissipated.

"Holy shit, the fucker can form a singularity." DB chimed in, firing his own Saber rifle at the towering alien creature.

"A what?!" Rojas asked.

"A black fucking hole! It's creating a miniature black hole and using it to negate our cover and movement! So stay clear and start moving your ass if that bastard starts glowing again!"

"Oh, that's just fucking great!" Fenix growled as he moved to another spot of cover in the room, "Jones! Can you pop a 'nade into his back?"

From the other side of the room, Jones answered, "Give it something to distract its attention, then yeah, I could. Otherwise-"

"He'll just deflect it like last time with his fucking shield. Right." Fenix checked to see how many grenades he had left. Two. Alright, let's try this. He pulled out a grenade and primed it, looking out to see what the Knight was doing. It was deflecting rounds from Petkov and a couple guards firing at it with that damn shield it was holding, while returning fire with its own weapons. It glowed again and threw out another one of those miniature black holes, but the soldiers were quicker this time and dodged it without getting caught in its distortion field. The Knight growled in... frustration? Anger? Or just merely growled for the sake of it? Who knows. What was known was that most of its armor was thick enough to deflect the pistol and shotgun rounds being fired at it, leaving the rifles and the machine gun Petkov carried as the only firearms actually capable of harming it. The problem was, the alien bastard seemed to know this too, and had its shield facing at the soldiers carrying rifles to protect itself.

Fenix waited for a moment, then threw the grenade towards the creature's feet. To his utter shock, the alien glowed blue and extended its arm out. The grenade was surrounded in a field of blue haze, then thrown back at him.

"Oh, you're... fucking kidding me." Fenix moaned as he leaped over his cover as the grenade sailed past him and detonated, throwing him from the spot and crashing into the floor. Getting up quickly, he looked up and rolled backwards just in time to avoid a downward slash from the Knight's blade, which easily sliced into the metal floor of the room. He leveled his rifle and fired a burst into the creature's arm, who in turn quickly retracted back behind the cover of its shield.

A high pitch thump went out, and then the backside of the alien's armor exploded in fiery fashion. Jones had managed to land a shot into its back, but the damage seemed only moderate at best. Fenix had figured its armor was probably weaker in the back, but now that didn't seem so sure. Say what you want about this bastard, no one could deny it was a tough bastard. Such an explosion only earned a short grunt of discomfort from the Knight, who retaliated with another black hole orb and a long burst of fire from its machine pistols, forcing Jones back into cover.

The Knight growled again, and then charged towards another group of security guards at the far side of the room, where Petkov was. All four of the soldiers open fired on the towering menace, but their shots were merely deflected by its shield as it started to glow blue again. The alien, with a thunderous warcry, leapt into the air and slammed its fist into the ground, generating a massive blue shockwave that sent all four of the soldier flying back, slamming into the ground or into a wall. It fired a burst into one of the downed guards, then moved to eliminate another one.

Fenix cursed and ran towards them, firing his Saber as he did, while being joined by the remaining survivors in hopes that they would be able to corner and overwhelm the beast with their firepower.

* * *

 _ **Paladin Knight**_

The _hoo-man_ beneath him screamed out as it fired away at him with its tiny pistol, only the scream was cut short by a quick burst from his own pistols, ending its life.

This was a truly marvelous battle. Even despite their disadvantages, these _hoo-mans_ continued to resist with such ferocity and determination. These were true warriors. Worthy adversaries to battle, unlike the Vagrant who had pillaged and plagued the Kodox worlds in search of riches and slaves for years now. They were nothing more than undisciplined cowards without their precious spaceships, which was their only true advantage over the Imperial Military and the sole reason they had even been winning the war against them for the past 8 years.

In comparison to them, Tarkano Cualli was glad for such a worthy challenge. It had been too long since he had one as such. Still, one thing still irked at his mind. By all accounts, this battle should not even be happening.

The Concordant of Ixmina, an ancient document of warfare that all Knights and Generals are required to know by their hearts, dictates how the Paladin Knights and the Kodox Military as a whole conducts itself during war. In the case of the Vagrants, unrestricted warfare was allowed. They attacked first without provocation, enslaving and killing their people, and ravaging their worlds. All bets were off and nothing would be held back in that regard.

But these _hoo-mans_ , on the other hand, had not attacked them first. By the Concordant, peaceful contact should have been attempted first, then if battle broke out they would fight. The Kodox were the aggressors, not the defenders. And they had violated the Concordant by attacking unprovoked. For a Knight, this was a violation of the very morals of the Imperium as far they were concerned.

But the senior Knight in command didn't seem to care, and a newly initiated Knight like him wasn't supposed to question the wisdom of his superior. Regardless, he couldn't help but question. If their actions here were discovered, they would be punished for violating the Concordant. A severe offense. But surely his brother knew what he was doing. He must of had some great and noble reasons for all of this... right?

If not...

* * *

But he couldn't think about that right now, as he raised his shield up to block incoming fire from the _hoo-mans_. He was tempted many times to use his shoulder mounted rocket launcher, but resisted the urge. He wasn't sure if the walls would handle such a blow if he happened to miss, and he would rather not get sucked out into space by a hull breach. That would be a foolish and embarrassing way for a Knight of the Imperium to die.

He channeled his biotic reserves once more and launched a throw at a couple of the more heavily armed soldiers, warping parts of their armor and sending them slamming back into the floor. One soldier, one he recognized as having escaped him earlier, surged forward and charged at him, roaring out as he powered up the odd melee weapon underneath his firearm.

Odd or not, Cualli knew that weapon could do horrendous things to flesh, and he wasn't going to learn if it could damage his armor. Cualli intercepted the attack with his shield, sparks flying off it as the weapon tried to saw its way through. This _hoo-man_ was brave, no doubt, but that would only get you so far. He thrust the shield up, throwing the soldier off balance, and delivered a solid kick to the _hoo-man's_ chest, sending him crashing into a computer desk.

He felt a blast off the back of his head and was lurched forward by the force, growling in slight pain, before turning around and bisecting the offending _hoo-man_ who had tried to blast his head off with a... shotgun? Interesting choice of name, but the weapon was dangerous to those with light armor. For someone like him, with his heavy armor, it merely gave him a throbbing headache.

His sword glowed eerily, awaiting its next foe, as he charged towards the group of _hoo-mans_ , channeling his biotic powers once more, the slamming his shield on the ground to launch a shockwave, sending the soldiers flying. Cualli had noticed that his biotics, despite their incredible power and abilities, were working only moderately against the _hoo-mans'_ armor. Were they using some kind of metal that was naturally resilient to the effects of biotics? He was no geologist, but he and many in the Imperium knew, thanks to the Vagrants, that there were a handful of metals that were naturally resistant to the warping and physics bending powers of biotics.

Either way, their armor would protect them better from such attacks. But they were not immune to damage.

Channeling the biotic powers once more, he used a pull on one of the soldiers and sent him flying towards him. He intercepted the soldier midair and impaled him on his sword, killing him instantly. As it should be done. He deactivated the sword, dropping the body, and rolled back as that one _hoo-man_ soldier launched an explosive round at him once more, the explosion kicking up debris when it impacted the ground.

 _'My Leige, come in.'_ His Velite Prior suddenly spoke through the comms.

 _"This is not a good time, Prior. It better be important."_ Cualli demanded.

 _'Forgiveness, my Leige, but our forces are under attack from hoo-man reinforcements attempting to reach their communications building. And our Commander has ordered our troops to withdrawl back to the ships.'_

 _"Withdrawl?! What?!"_ Cualli demanded. They were holding the enemy, weren't they? Why would they abandon battle so suddenly?!

 _'Our flotilla has returned with reinforcements from a nearby Flotilla. But even with our numbers increased, the enemy has brought forth their own reinforcements. We have suffered significant casualties while only destroying 5 of the enemy's vessels. If things continue this way...'_

 _"We'll be cut off without support."_ Cualli finished, knowing damn well that would happen. He looked over to the other side of the room and saw that their Synthetic was back on the computers, trying to regain access. At this point, it was too late for the synth to do anything other than regain control. They had acquired all the useful data and information they would need from this installation hours ago. The virus and infiltration programs had done their work. Now, they were fighting for a useless station. Useless to them, anyhow.

Begrudingly, he conceded, _"Very well. Pull your men back, Prior. I will regroup with you shortly."_

 _'As you command, my Leige.'_

Cualli blocked another melee strike from one of the _hoo-man_ soldiers, again sparks flying off his shield as the saw tried cutting through. Then another soldier ran up from the other side and tried to cut him. He blocked that one with his sword, sparks flying off it as well. Both soldiers were trying to pin him down and keep him from moving while the others shot at him. Clever, and it might work had he been a more foolhardy warrior. But it appears that mindset would claim another, as yet another soldier charged from behind him, its melee weapon growling as the warrior prepared to strike his back armor.

Cualli was quick to react. He crouched down and did a 180 spin, swinging around and throwing off the other two soldiers. Then, he slammed both the bladed end of his shield and his sword into the soldier's armor, piercing it and slicing into the gut and the arm respectively, which also caught the rifle in the swing, slicing it in half. The _hoo-man_ warrior gasped out and seemed to just stop in place, looking down seemingly in shock as to what had just happened to it, then back up to him.

The Knight wasted no time. With a growl, he planted a kick into the soldier's chest and sent him tumbling back. Another _hoo-man_ shouted out something, it sounded like 'Feenux!' or something along the lines, and raised its rifle to fire on him. Cualli, however, was prepared. Channeling the biotic energy in him once more, he summoned a massive amount, his entire body coated in a thick layer of blue energy, then slammed both of his fist down into the ground. A massive shockwave erupted around him, blasting all the _hoo-man_ warriors away and lifting them into the air, along with loose debris and corpses, where they all floated helplessly before him. The only one that hadn't been effected was the synth back towards the main computers, who muttered something and pulling out his pistol firing at the Knight to ill effect. The small rounds bounced off his thick armor.

The _hoo-man_ warriors, those still alive, floated helplessly in the air. Easy prey to kill.

* * *

But it would not be. These warriors had fought with immense bravery, and had earned the right to live. Thus, they shall live. He also needed to retreat before he was cut off from his allies and any chance of escape. Cualli did not fear death, far from it, he just feared dying a foolish and pointless one. There will likely be many more battles ahead that would need Knights like him. Whether also against these _hoo-mans_ , was yet to be seen and known.

Rumbling softly, the Knight observed the alien warriors one last time, before stopping his gaze on the one he had slashed twice, who was glaring back at him. The two warriors seemed to stare at one another for the longest time, as if studying the face of the other, taking in the details of their foe. After a couple moments, Cualli grunted, then turned to leave and regroup with his troops.

As he vanished into the halls and tunnels, he had a strong feeling this would not be the last time their paths would cross. Such bound and determined warriors were always fated to meet once more.

* * *

 _ **Corporal Fenix**_

Fenix plopped to the ground as the levitating field dissipated, grunting in pain. He shakily place a hand to his midsection, and sure enough, it came back with blood on it. He panted lightly, feeling light headed and drowsy. And he was having trouble moving his left arm. He could hear the soldiers and guards recovering, but by the time any of them were on their feet, the alien... the Paladin Knight, as DB had called it, was long gone.

"Julius!" He heard Rojas shouting out, rushing and kneeling next to him to check over his injuries. "Hang on, you're gonna be fine!"

He then looked over the gut wound, before speaking, "Armor stopped most of it, but he could still be at risk of disembowelment if we move him or take the armor off hastily." Rojas looked back to the survivors, "Anyone have a trauma kit?!"

"Yeah! Here!" One of the security guards answered as he tossed the kit. Rojas caught it and started going to work on sealing up and patching Fenix's injuries. He hissed out as he felt a strong burning sensation on his gut, the telltale sign that the bio-gel was doing its work sealing up the laceration.

* * *

"DB! How the hell did you know what that thing was called?!" Carmine demanded.

"Well, I tried to counterhack into their systems whenever there was an opportunity, not many but there were a few. But like I said earlier, their cyber warfare programs are way better than ours, so I could only get bits and pieces of information on the bastards, like what the big bastard right was called." DB answered. Carmine glared at the android, before sighing, "Fine, whatever. What about communications and the security breach?"

"Offline and done. The virus or whatever the hell it was self-destruct, the small little fragments of it I managed to salvage are now safely stored away. However, when it did that, it shut down the entire system. I'd have to reboot the entire station's power grid just to get it up and running properly again. As for the breach, whatever they were looking for in our system, they got it now. I couldn't do anything to stop it except delay it momentarily, but the program just kept evolving and adapting to whatever I attacked it with."

"So they know where our colonies are?" Jones asked, checking over an injured guard.

"More than likely." DB shrugged, which was weird for the humans to see an android doing, "Along with anything else that was in these servers."

"Dammit." Carmine muttered, before walking over to inspect Fenix. Looking him over, he didn't look good. "How is he?" She asked.

"Hurt bad, but he should make it." Rojas answered without looking at her, "I'm gonna have to put you under, though, Julius. Can't have you moving around too much nad "

Fenix merely grunted and nodded, looking over to the Onyx Guard Sergeant, "Sorry about your soldiers... We found one of them and took his COG tags with us." He slowly spoke out, fishing the COG tags out of his pouch. Carmine knelt down and took them, nodding a thanks before storing them in her own pouch.

"We're too badly mauled to be any use to anyone. We'll hunker down here and-" Carmine's orders were cut short as the whole station rumbled fiercely, an explosion being heard in the distance.

"What the fuck was that?!" Petkov asked.

"Nothing good for us." DB bluntly replied, "That came from the northern part of the facility."

"But there's nothing of value there. Compared to over here anyhow." Carmine argued.

"Well, the skitters must have decided it was, 'cause there's no way our guys would blow up part of the station they're trying to save, unless something crashed into it." DB countered.

Faintly, they could hear the sounds of gunfire coming from somewhere, possibly beneath them on the lower levels. The gunfire sounded like Saber rifles being fired, but they weren't sure.

"Okay, looks like the cavalry might be on its way. We hold here and wait for them to get here. Everybody stack up on ammo and-" Fenix didn't hear the rest of Carmine's orders, as her voice slowly faded out. Rojas had injected the Ketophine into him, and his pain, along with his ability to stay awake, slowly faded. Soon enough, the drug overwhelm his conscience and he drifted into blissful slumber.

* * *

 _ **Several Days Later...  
Undisclosed Location...**_

"So they managed to acquire pretty much everything on our colonies and us, hmm?"

'Yes sir, Chancellor. Everything from populations to locations.'

"And we still know next to nothing about them. This is not a pleasing development. With everything else going on, a hostile first contact and potential war is the last thing we need... What about the... 'unofficial' part of Argolis Station? Was everything really destroyed?"

'Unfortunately, yes. They took everything that wasn't bolted down and launched an orbital strike on the base when their troops pulled out. Nothing but scrap metal remains of both the station and the derelict ship we were researching.'

"Is it possibly one of their own?"

'Our spooks don't believe so, sir. The design philosophy between the derelict and the Kodox ships are vastly different. Plus, the derelict ship is at least a few thousand years old and a much more durable design than that of the Kodox.'

"I see... very well, General. Thank you. Right now, we need to bolster our defenses and prepare for a potential war. I will have to give the Senate and public a full disclosure as to what happened. I want you to begin recruitment drives and see into bolstering our military production, especially in the Navy. God knows we'll need as many ships as we can make."

'Consider it done, Chancellor.'

"Thank you, Henry. I'll be expecting another call from you or the general staff within a week to know how things are progressing. Goodbye."

* * *

 **And that's it for this chapter. Hope you enjoyed. As always, feel free to leave a review or suggestions, I'm always open to constructive criticism.**

 **Merry Christmas, everyone!**

 **See you next time!**

 **-Azores**


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